Opus 2015-406: The Nanny State Comes to School

I was visited by the Nanny State recently.

I was trying to teach and the door to the class opened.  Two men walk in that I have never seen before and announce that it is a visit by the fire marshal.  I am thrilled.  I think that someone has finally turned in the school because I have 40 students crammed into a tiny room and it is unsafe.  When I ask I am informed that this room could have 50 students since it has two doors.  To my inquiry about not being able to walk around without tripping and being two crowded to get to the door all he could tell me was that it was the law.  So far, so good.  Then I made the mistake of saying that the law was stupid, or something to that effect.  At that point the smoke began to emerge from the ears of one of the guys and his eyes lit up.  He became that cop with an attitude that pulls you over because you are driving while black and is going to look for some reason to write you up.

He began to look around the room.  He missed the hole in the wall, covered by duct tape with exposed wires inside.  He never even looked at the fire extinguisher.  He said nothing about the microwave perched on top of a rolling stool.  His eyes lit up when he saw - extension cords.  He informed me that I was out of compliance and breaking the law.  I told him they were in a corner where no one went and were no danger.  He told me that we have fires all the time caused by the arrangement I was using. 

I carefully quizzed him on what I needed to do.  It seems all I needed to do was take the power strip, stretch it across my path and plug it into the wall instead of using the extension cords.  I did this as soon as he left and was in compliance.  It doesn’t matter that one of the cords was connected to something I rarely used and when I did no other cord was in use.  It didn’t matter that the other was one of those industrial grade cords that are used on construction sites.  It didn’t matter that there were no frayed, exposed wires.  The only high wattage object was the microwave and I already had it plugged into the wall.

He wrote me up complaining about my “many” extension cords.  Two.  Yes, two is now many.  He is a glorious example of the nanny state.  He went back to his office and sent the principal a note along with attachments of all the applicable laws and regulations at question.  The funny thing to me was I realized later that the one having apoplexy was not the fire marshall.  He was a school district bureaucrat.  The real fire marshall was pretty mellow and never said a word in support.

So I am in compliance.  The law, if it was the law, was stupid.  I am not sure it was the law, but you can’t argue with city hall or the nanny state.

homo unius libri