We knew we had a serious problem on our hands when the entire student body of Emerson Middle School began to show up in mismatched socks. It was weird, but it wasn’t middle-school weird. You see: the socks were all wrong, but all wrong in the right way. You look down and you see one kid’s got stripes on his left foot and polka dots on his right foot standing next to another kid who’s got checkered prints on her left foot and leopard prints on her right foot, and it all looks good together, as if the students had conspired to have the same color palette. And then you look at other socks and it’s the same thing. Technically, they’re all different, but technically they all go together. Never have I, in my twenty-nine years of teaching middle school, witnessed such coordinated discoordination. It’s one thing for two hundred or so pubescent children to come to school with the buttons on their shirts in the back, their pants inside out, their shoes on the wrong feet. ‘Cause then you know what you’ve got on your hands. You’ve got Backwards Day. Backwards Day is a rite of passage, a developmentally appropriate outlet for the biochemical mishmash that is the 11-14-year-old brain.
I started teaching in 2009, so I’ve seen it all. Time Travel Day, Paint Your Face Day, Anything But a Backpack Day. Then there was that whole Adam Sandler Day phase, back in the early 2020s, if you remember. I’ll never forget Leo Fotakis, 4 foot 2, shortest kid in the school, wearing black sunglasses and dressed up in his XL t-shirt and baggy basketball shorts, reciting Billy Madison, “You’re not cool unless you pee in your pants.” It was quite funny at the time, but then a couple months later it was sadly ironic ’cause he actually did pee in his pants in the middle of seventh-grade algebra in front of the whole class. And you think, he’s not comin’ back from that. But you know what, children are resilient.
I’ve always been partial to the classics. Twin Day. Crazy Hair Day. Ugly Sweater Day. And I know what you’re thinking, why haven’t I said, “Blah Blah Blah Day”? Okay. Fine. Pajama Day. Personally, I’ve never been a fan. I have my opinion, and it’s a strong one. But back in 2025, I said to myself, “Jack, is this the hill you wanna die on?”
Being a middle-school teacher takes a lot of stamina. You’re climbing up a lot of hills. You’ve got kids bouncing off of walls. Some are still picking their noses or picking their wedgies in front of everybody. Of course, you got your special moments, too. ‘Cause those kids are hypervigilant in their silliness. Corny jokes galore. “You heard about the explosion in the cheese factory? Debris was everywhere.” But everything changed in ’29. That’s when they started bringing in the superintelligent A.I. kids. And before you know it, there’s more of the A.I. kids than real kids. But you couldn’t talk about it. FERPA regulations.
I’ll admit, on the day I saw all those students wearing mismatched socks, my first thought wasn’t: “The superintelligent A.I. takeover has arrived.” Instead, I’m thinking, “Great. They’re bringing back “Lots of Socks.” Every year, on March 21st, our school used to celebrate World Down Syndrome Day. The kids learned about how chromosomes look like socks. They wore all kinds of socks. Ankle. Knee High. Flip Flop. You name it. It was a lot of fun, and it raised awareness. But here’s the thing, it wasn’t March 21st, and these socks were all crew socks and too mismatchy, as if all the colors and patterns had been precisely calibrated. I saw Ms. Ryan, an eighth-grade English teacher, who’s been teaching for almost as long as I have, staring at the socks. She turned to me and said, “It’s weird, but it’s not middle-school weird.”
“Exactly. You remember, Leo Fotakis?” I said.
“Yeah,” she smiled, and nodded her head. “I miss those days.”
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L.M. George is a former middle school teacher who lives in Los Angeles County. She is a big fan of Pajama Day, and she believes that the superintelligent A.I. takeover will take place sometime around 2050.