You call it pranking, I call it ARSON.

A group of callow youths broke into the school (fairly easy, I guess, as it happens about three times a semester) and set fire to the main office. They did it last year around this time, too, but in typical inbred fashion they set the fire inside the filing cabinets and then shut the drawer. Good thing they skipped so many science classes, I guess. This year they proved their mettle and learned from their mistakes. They set about a dozen small fires in various parts of the office, including the filing cabinet (open this time), and split. The resulting blaze caused over $150,000 worth of damage and was minutes away from igniting the roof. I heard about it over a week after the fact, because the administration wants to avoid negative press and the locals don't want to rat anyone out, because as I've mentioned they are all related and I guess laws just don't apply to 'kin'.

There are no suspects as of yet because everyone's so hush-hush, though the school boasts massive graduating classes of 25-30 students. That's fewer than 120 students, tops. It's likely not a girl, as most of the girls are busy getting pregnant or feigning illness to get out of anything they possibly can. They lack the ambition to light a stick of incense, let alone a bunch of well-planned fires. Let's slash that number in half. 60 boys. Of those, there are some that are too terrified, too connected, too religious, or too lazy and thus are above suspicion. Let's say half again. 30 suspects. Of these, there are actually about a dozen really nice boys there. 18 boys. If we could not rule out anyone else at all, we still have the field narrowed considerably. But let's take into account the fact that the catchment area for the school covers the town 15 miles north and the town 9 miles west. It's feasible to say that a third of these kids live too far out, and most have no vehicle access. So we're down to a dozen, conservatively. Is no one capable of leaning on these remaining shitheads to get some answers? These are not kids who are particularly bright or sly or anything, really. The only consideration as of late is to raise a reward to offer. Yes, that's right, the only way anyone will take action is through bribery.

I'm actually not as horrified as I should be. I am becoming desensitized to this madness to some extent and try to focus on my own little block of lunacy so it's in bite-sized chunks, if you will. My husband split the profession after the first semester and is a struggling salesman whose biggest source of stress is city traffic. My anxiety levels rose exponentially for a few weeks then leveled off as my brain's sanity adaptors kicked in. I am in what is commonly known as "survival mode" and will be for the rest of the year. Don't care. When I really lose my shit, I revert into some sort of surrealistic '50s June Cleaver mode, baking cookies and polishing silver, all the while hearing a soundtrack that sounds uncannily like ice cream truck music. It could be madness. I choose to call it 'character-building'. It's a building I can't wait to ignite myself.