School principal quotes from Shameless

School principal

No one around here really knows those terrapins are a Grateful Dead thing. The kids call 'em Mr. G's turtles. Shit, man, they don't even know who the Grateful Dead are. Ah, man. The summer of 1979. The best summer of my life. Followed the Dead around the Midwest. Supported myself selling grilled cheese in the parking lot. Yeah, they made great music. Their music blows. But their female fans, were a bunch of patchouli-soaked sluts who all wanted to ball their first black guy. I never embraced tokenism with more gusto. Those terrapins were a parting gift from this Skidmore chick who sucked me off like I had diamonds buried in the bottom of my ball sack. Whoo! Man... this is some good shit.

School principal

This is it?

Fiona

This is his brother. Uh, Phillip.

School principal

Very good to see you again, sir.

Fiona

Uh, Phillip is 17, I'm 21, uh, and while we may not be the legal guardians of our brother, we do supply him.

School principal

I told you I wanted to see a parent.

Fiona

We just opened the letter today.

I gave Carl the letter last week.

Steve

So you're relying on a nine-year-old to deliver important correspondence?

You don't seem to have a home phone.

Fiona

Carl is taken care of at home by loving siblings.

School principal

This is not up for negotiation. Your brother is on the verge of being expelled, and unfortunately, there are steps the state requires to be taken before he can be bounced, and a meeting with his legal guardian is the next step.

Fiona

Please, you can't do this. I mean, he loves school.

More potential victims here, I suppose.

Fiona

No, all his friends are here. Can you stop it? I'm serious. He needs more structure, we know.

School principal

What Carl needs is medication, a near-death experience, or a lobotomy.

School principal

I'm placing a call to social services. A home without a legal guardian is a home we cannot condone.

Steve

[He enters office] Hello all. Uh, sorry I was late. I got held up at the office. So, now that Fiona and I are engaged, I've filed the paperwork so that we can become the legal guardians of the children.

Do you realize Carl's report card has seven U's?

Fiona

Uh, U's?

As in unsatisfactory.

School principal

But don't think of U as in unsatisfactory. Think of U as in F.

Fiona

As in failed?

School principal

As in fucked. I am not a religious man, but every now and then, a child comes along who makes me believe in the existence of Satan. Now, something drastic must be done, or he's going to slip down through the cracks, right up into a clock tower with a sniper rifle.

Given our resources, he is beyond our ability to help.

Fiona

It's just a phase. And... now that we're aware of it...

School principal

Too late! This Norman Rockwell display might warm the cockles of some other fool who believes no fucking child, not even the budding psychotics, should be left behind, but the fact is, the sooner Carl is put in prison, the safer this world is gonna be.

Steve

More of a Mickey Hart fan when it comes to paintings? [Referring to terrapin turtle sculptures]

School principal

What? What's that? More of a Mickey Hart fan than a Norman Rockwell fan. Mickey Hart's an all right painter for a drummer.

Steve

Could you all excuse us for a second?

School principal

For what?

Steve

If we could just take a walk and talk in private? Get a breath of fresh air?

School principal

Hey, uh, uh, you ever been with a black guy?

Does rape count?

School principal

Um...

I was acquitted. [They both burst out laughing]

School principal

Mr. Gallagher, I'd like a word with you in my office. Students talk. They talk in the corridors, in the cafeteria. They talk, and they seem to think that if they lower their bellowing voices only slightly that I can't hear them. But I have the ears of a dog, Mr. Gallagher, the ears of a dog and the soul of a warrior. Heard you're selling weapon, son. [Sighs] There was a school shooting at Westmont last month, three kids and two teachers shot. And Bridgemont Middle School, 13-year-old lost a leg. Hobbling around on a peg now.

Carl

So?

School principal

So? You don't care about your fellow man? I want a GLOCK. A nine-millimeter semi with an extended mag but no cop-killer bullets. I need hollow tips. Can't have my bullet going through the shooter into some innocent kid.

School principal

Mr. and Mrs. Slott--

Sammi

Gallagher for me.

Your grandson Charles tried to read a very offensive book report to Mr. Schwiebert's class.

Sammi

The boy doesn't know what he's saying.

Frank

Our grandson is a little slow between the ears.

Your grandson seems to believe that he's a Nazi. Any ideas where he's getting that from?

Sammi

Most likely other Nazis.

Charles received a suspension as a lesson for his behavior and a failing grade on the paper.

Queenie

His shit-for-brains mother couldn't pass gas, let alone middle school. My grandson wrote an entire report here and you're gonna fail him for this?

Frank

Hey, I read it. A couple of grammatical things here and there. He didn't remember to capitalize Auschwitz, but the kid can write.

Hitler's diatribe on Aryan superiority is not an appropriate theme for a sixth grade book report.

Frank

Did you tell the class they couldn't write about Nazis?

Well, usually, they're not writing from the Nazi perspective, so no. Look, it's okay to write about mass murders. You just can't side with the mass murderers.

Frank

Uh, this is a direct attack on his First Amendment rights, a right, I might add, that belongs to everyone regardless of intelligence deficiencies or possible retardation. Yes, but there are conditions to those rights, like yelling "fire" in a public theater or preaching white supremacy to middle school students.

Look, we simply can't allow Hitler's hate speech to alienate our diverse student body. We've worked very hard to create an open atmosphere for all our students.

Frank

Look, you can't go teaching equality and then get your human rights panties in a bunch when it comes with a couple of wedgies. Every asshole is entitled to his beliefs. That's the yin and the yang of democracy. It's the same freedom that allows you to teach wearing [[w:Kippah|that silly beanie and [[w:Multiculturalism|those Crayola-colored kids]] out there to go to school together. It- it doesn't matter anyway. Pretty soon, there's not gonna be any [[w:Judaism|Jew]] or [[w:Aryan|Aryan]] or [[w:Hinduism|Hindu]] or [[w:Islam|Muslim]] or [[w:Mexican people|Mexican]] or [[w:African American|Blacks]]. There's just gonna be the rich and the fucked, and our grandson is already one of the fucked. So at least let the boy express the degenerate ideas he can actually comprehend, and that, my multicultural friends, [[w:Pledge of Allegiance|is liberty and justice for all]]! Or we could call [[w:United States Attorney General|the attorney general]] and the [[w:American Civil Liberties Union|ACLU]]. I'm sorry, I probably should have started with that.