The Timeout Box

Special note: Names and composite descriptions of people in this story have been intentionally changed.

Back in 1981, Allison James, an instructional assistant at my elementary school, implemented a new disciplinary approach to working with problem children.

It was called The Timeout Box.

The Timeout Box was a place for a child to sit, in the dark, while they contemplated their behavior.  It was essentially a large corrugated cardboard box that had initially been used to ship a refrigerator, covered in red construction paper.  A door, about 3 1/2 feet high and the width of the box, was cut into the front.  It was necessary to either crawl or stoop to get into it.  A standard child-sized metal chair with a wooden seat was placed in the center of this box.  If Allison James determined that you had misbehaved, she would place you in this box.  You were expected to sit in this chair, in this box, for an unspecified period of time.

The Box, as we kids called it, was in Room 2.  As the school's instructional assistant, this room was assigned to Allison James.  She used it to provide what would later come to be known as supplementary instruction to students who needed it.

Allison James, or Allison as we called her, delighted in her work.  Most of the time she was actually quite pleasant.  She would spend her time with us, attending to our various tutoring needs.  I did not require supplemental instruction from her, but she would sometimes be asked to work with me and a few of the other higher performing students in our spelling class. Yes, in those days we were all required to take an actual spelling class as part of our curriculum.

One day, while we were going over our spelling in Room 2, another student walked in and announced that Allison had a telephone call.

She promptly excused herself and accompanied the student who had announced her telephone call to the front office.

As soon as the door closed behind Allison, we heard sounds coming from the Box.  It was Jerry, a known troublemaker.  We knew it was him because he'd been sent to Room 2 earlier in the morning for dry-humping his seat during our quiet reading time.  Melanie, our teacher in Room 4, did not find his sexually provocative movements to be as amusing as the rest of us did.

Here he was, again, making sexually provocative noises.  Only this time, he was making them inside the Timeout Box and he was asking Allison to join him.  As soon as he heard us giggling, he increased the sexual moaning and he began to beat against the side of the Box, calling out to Allison as he did so.  He would do this and we would giggle.  As soon as the giggling stopped, he would do it again.

At about the time of his third go-around, Allison returned to Room 2.  I am sure I can only imagine what she was thinking when she walked in and heard, simultaneously, Jerry calling out to her while moaning in feigned ecstasy and beating against the side of The Box while the rest of us were giggling on the other side of the room.

As she walked into the room we could tell she was not amused.  Her face flushed red with color as a sign of what I would now interpret as some measure of embarrassment.  The Box was now quaking in such a way that we thought it would collapse.  Allison walked briskly up to the Box and announced to Jerry that he needed to "stop this behavior immediately!"

She continued, "Jerry, stop that!  Come out of there right now."  She turned to the rest of us, saying she'd be right back.  In that moment, she grabbed Jerry by the arm and escorted him out of the room.  Moments later, she returned.

As Allison sat down to continue our spelling lesson I don't know what came over me.  I looked at her as she composed herself and said, "well that was fun."

She was not amused.

We started giggling.

She said, "Orval if you think it's so funny, maybe you should be sitting in The Timeout Box?"

I laughed.  Hard.  The others giggled.

Allison's face flushed red again.  She said, "Orval, pick up your things and go sit in the Timeout Box."

A look of satisfaction in the form of a smirk quickly formed on her face, replacing the red of embarrassment that we had witnessed moments earlier in the color of her cheeks.

Feeling somewhat bemused, I quickly picked up my things and went to the Box.  She and the others were looking at me as I glanced back at them.

Allison continued, "go on, open the door and sit down in the chair."

The others were looking at me.  All of them were smiling.  In that moment, I believe I captured a look of envy from one of them.  I smiled back.

The color immediately returned to Allison's face.

"You are going to sit in there until we are done with this lesson.  When I'm done, I'm going to call your parents," she said.

As they continued with the lesson, I followed along, reciting the spelling of words to myself as I sat there in the dark.  If it weren't for the fact that Jerry had an odor that lingered in this space, it would have been quite pleasant.  

She did call my parents later that day.

When I got home, I recounted my version of the story to my father as he sat smoking a Pall Mall Red cigarette.  When I got to the point in the story where the Box was quaking, dad pushed out a laugh so hard the cigarette he was smoking fell out his mouth.

"Son, you know better than this," he said.

I replied, "I know, dad, but it was fun."

He laughed again, coughing as his laughter subsided.