Rejected by the FBI

By Jody Worsham
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If you write and submit your writings, you expect to be rejected…a lot. If you suggest any rational or practical ideas at say an economic summit, you can anticipate no one in an elected office will listen to you. But if you sign on as a substitute teacher in a state so desperate for subs that anyone whose breath can still fog a mirror, even slightly, is called until rigor mortise sets in, you expect to be accepted on the sub list. Not so. I shall explain.

To increase security, or possibly to give some brother-in-law’s failing company a gigantic economic boost onto the bottom rung of the Fortune 500, our legislature is now requiring all teachers and substitute teachers to be fingerprinted at a cost of approximately $52.75 per teacher/sub. The fingerprints can only be taken by ONE company, the brother-in-law company; but once entered into the Brig Brother Data Base, you can substitute anywhere in the state.

I do not have a problem with this, well except for the Big Brother part and the single company monopoly part. When we adopted our last two children four years ago, both my husband and I had to be fingerprinted for a criminal background check. I think we may have even been fingerprinted when we applied to adopt two donkeys form the federal government’s Burro Reclamation Project in the 80’s. Since I also have a passport and driver’s license, my fingerprints are in several systems. Fingerprinting is not the problem.

The problem is the system. I was given a time to be fingerprinted. I had my Fast Pass, required before you can be fingerprinted, not to save time. I think the brother-in-law CEO of the fingerprint company may have just gotten back from Disney World. I had my driver’s license and my social security card. I even brought along my passport just in case. No one asked for my teaching certificate, number of years teaching experience, or my birth certificate. I guess that did not matter. I was anticipating and waiting for the fogged mirror test.

I think I have watched too many episodes of “Law and Order’ or “Matlock” because I also brought along baby wipes to remove the black ink. This was not needed as fingerprinting has gone high tech. I was photographed, each hand was scanned on a computer, each digit was rolled across the screen, and I could see the entire process on the monitor. The required sums were paid and I was dismissed.

A week later I still have not received any calls to substitute and I am sure rigor mortise has not set in. I currently have a heart beat and I can fog up a mirror. I am confused.

Today I received a letter from the brother-in-law fingerprinting company saying my fingerprints had been rejected by the FBI. Now I was not applying for The Silver Fox Anti-terrorist School for Retired Teachers. I did not want to be in the newest class at Quantico. I just want to substitute teach.

Rejected! Thirty-nine years in the classroom as a certified teacher with a master’s degree in three teaching fields and I was rejected. After I calmed down and found my glasses, I read on down to the bottom of the page where I saw REASON in big letters followed by “First rejection.” Were there going to be more? Then below that was “ridges too faint to read.”

Faint ridges? Faint ridges? Faint ridges! I have no fingerprints! Does that make me a vampire? No, vampires have no reflections. What is it when you have no fingerprints? A ghost? A mummy? The mob’s best friend? Then it hit me. Well of course the ridges are too faint to read. They are almost seven decades old. I’ve patted eight children to sleep over a period of forty years, sewed thousands of costumes, built a house and a barn, graded a million papers, and driven a quadrillion miles taking kids to and fro. I’ve even burned those ridges the few times I tried to cook. I pound a computer keyboard several hours a day and my new lap top doesn’t have a mouse. You just tap...with your fingertips. Of course they are worn out! But I can still out-teach a “mirror-fogger.”

I read on further. There was a number I could call to reschedule a second fingerprinting/scanning session. If I reschedule, maybe I’ll get the Elmer’s glue and squirt a sad face on my finger. I’m not saying which finger. I’ll bet those ridges would scan.

The phone is in my pocket. I’m still thinking.