The Most Sacrilegious Thing You've Ever Witnessed

Crossfit at the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The gift shop at the 9/11 museum. Misting showers at Auschwitz. Inappropriate and thoughtless choices are being made everywhere you look, and so-called sacred spaces are no exception. So tell us, what’s the most sacrilegious thing you’ve ever witnessed? Or—better yet—what’s the most sacrilegious thing you’ve ever done?

Have you, like TWO of the Jezebel staffers, been sexually active in a place of worship (a synagogue and cathedral, respectively)? Have you seen someone piss on a famous monument? Jerk off in front of a Van Gogh painting? Do drugs at the Museum of Tolerance? We want to hear about it because that, my friends, is what Fridays are for.

Well, that and naming the winners of the previous week’s Pissing Contest, which, in this case, was tales of back-to-school triumph and humiliation. Drumroll, please…

RIP, DomCobbDied:

When I was in third grade I started school a week late because my family was in Europe. When I got back I thought all my friends would be excited to see me but instead I found out that someone had started a rumor I had died.

They had all accepted it and moved on. In less than a week.

Baby face! Amatomnes has got the cutest little baby face!

I have always had a baby face. At 27, I look like I’m a teenager, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be carded well into my thirties.

That being said.

Last year was my first year teaching high school English. We were in pre-service training for three weeks before school started, so I thought that I was fairly well known among the faculty and that I knew all of them. On the first day, I wore a long dress and heavy makeup in an attempt to make myself look older than my sophomores, and I thought it worked pretty well.

Until lunch.

I took a well-deserved break in the staff lounge and an older teacher proceeded to yell at me for five minutes about how students weren’t allowed in the staff areas and how had I gotten in and who was my dean before he noticed the big, shiny badge on my chest that said TEACHER.

The funny thing is that the exact same teacher did the exact same thing when I was trying to finalize my grades during finals week in may.

And finally, a heartwarming story from Muy guapo pug because we want to end this week on a high note:

I used to teach elementary art in a really low-income school district near Denver. One student, Franklin, was a third-grader who was homeless and living in a car with his mother at the time. The district and social services were aware and helping as much as possible, but mom was hard to work with due to some ongoing untreated mental health issues. Unsurprisingly, Franklin was not the most well-adjusted student and would regularly run out of the free breakfast program screaming and upset (as one might when they’re 8 and don’t have coping skills to deal with their situation).

However, Franklin totally freakin’ loved to draw, so we made a plan where he could bring his breakfast to my classroom until school started and help me prep for the day and draw pictures. Every day he would come in and greet me and just draw weiner dogs and trains and everything that kids that age are generally into.

I learned before the beginning of the following year that he would be living with a family member and had transferred to another school in the district. I knew I would miss him but was happy to hear his life was becoming more stable.

To my delight, on the first day of school, he walked in just BEAMING and presented me with a whole stack of drawings. His aunt said he drew one every morning over summer break and insisted on giving them to me before he started the year at his new school.

I don’t often miss classroom teaching now that I work at a university (for administrative and political reasons than anything), but that had to be the “best first day of school” of my entire life. I still have that stack of drawings packed away somewhere.