That time I got sent to the principal's office

There's a man at my place of work who doesn't seem to have an inside voice. Even though he has an office with a door, he rarely uses the door.  And even when he does, his voice still filters through.  So I get to hear all of his conversations -- work-related and otherwise.  One day, he was talking about how he spent a lot of time in the principal's office when he was younger.  I don't know what it had to do with anything, but it reminded me of my own trip to the principal's office.

I know, I know.

If you know me, you're thinking, "No way! Micah's a good girl! I can't believe she'd ever get in trouble."

One of my senior photos. I look like a good girl, right?

It went down during my senior year of high school. English class, to be more specific.  Now, in this class, we read a lot of books and wrote essays about different aspects of the book.  As you might know, I'm quite a reader.  I mean, I had taught myself to read by the time I went to kindergarten (much to my teacher's dismay), and I always had my nose in a book. Because of this, I became a pretty fast reader, so I was often ahead of the class in our assigments. That was the case on this particular day.

I had finished reading the book we had been assigned, and I had completed all of the essays and writings for it.  Our teacher gave us work time during class, and since I was done with all of that, I thought I would pull out a book I was reading for recreation.

Apparently this was the wrong choice.

The teacher confronted me about what I was reading.  I tried explaining that I was finished with the work he had assigned, but he wouldn't hear it. He thought I was disrespecting him and not making good use of my class time.  He pointed to the door and said, "If you don't want to use your time wisely, you might as well get out."

I was so stunned.  I'm pretty sure it took me several moments to gather all my things and, unaccustomed to being yelled at, I was a little teary-eyed by the time I reached the principal's office.  I explained to Mr. M what had happened and he just shrugged, handed me fifty cents, and told me to get a soda to enjoy until class was over.  Yep, really.

My visit to the principal's office was the talk of my class for most of the day.  One guy even said, "If Micah got kicked out, I might as well not even go to class."

So ... what do you think?  Did I deserve to get sent to the principal's office?

Also ... Did you ever get sent to the principal's office? What was your crime?