Marianne sat quietly in her tenth grade classroom copying the homework assignment. Suddenly she was almost jolted out of her seat by a really loud, shrieking noise. “Up, up…quickly. Out, out. No talking! Form a single file line…no pushing…and get out of the door and outside as fast as you can,” the teacher ordered.

As Marianne followed the other students out of the classroom and into the hall, she saw two senior boys she knew from Drama Class. Jeff and Andy didn’t seem to be rushing anywhere. They were just standing there, playfully poking each other and winking at all of the hot girls who hurried by. Marianne began to think about the time last year when Jeff and Andy had been accused of turning on all the showers in the girls and boys gym after all the students had left school for the day. Luckily, the custodian had gone back to the gym to find his glasses. He heard the showers on full force and turned them off. If he had not, there is little doubt that the entire basement level of the school would have been flooded by the next morning.

Jeff and Andy had gotten away with that because nobody had seen them do it. This time, however, in what turned out to be a false alarm fire, someone had. A freshman had seen Jeff and Andy break the school fire alarm box and reported it. Jeff and Andy admitted they had set off the false alarm, but claimed they were just protesting the fact that the school was making them take final exams. They were suspended from school for two weeks, not allowed to come to their graduation and forced to pay all costs caused by the destruction of school property.

A lot of people think there is a difference between joking around, playing a prank on someone and VANDALIZING his or her stuff. The truth is…if something you care about gets messed up, like a CD player, a favorite shirt, or DVD, the damage to your private property is just as bad whether the messing up was done just in fun or on purpose. Ruining stuff is ruining stuff. Remember that the next time you decide to fool around with someone else’s property, or you see other kids doing it! Just think how you’d feel if it was your stuff being vandalized, and be the one to say how ‘uncool’ it is.