I'm 42. Which means I'm part of this very specific micro-generation known as Xenials. It's not quite as cool as the X-Men, but it kinda sounds like we could be.

Anyways, it also means that I'm part of the last generation that did atomic bomb drills in elementary school.

I remember being 6 years old, and hiding under a desk, with my fingers interlocked behind my head, on my knees, nose touching the floor.

We had these drills for a few years even after 1990. By 1994 we seemed to have stopped. Not sure if thats just because I started going to middle school, or if it was because the adults realized that 1994 was not exactly a threat for Russia to nuke us. And the Soviet Union didn't exist anymore.

Anyways, I can remember asking my teacher in the 80s when I was still in 1st grade, I said "Why are we doing this?" And she said "To be prepared to survive atomic fallout".

I'm not sure if it was her policy, or the schools policy, but they never said "bomb". It was always "atomic fallout".

Well my dad loved watching the History Channel. And back then EVERY week was nazis week. So they'd inevitably aleays end with the Japanese side of WWII. So I knew all about the nuclear bomb.

So when my teacher told me I was on the floor, protecting my head, squished down in an uncomfortable position, I asked "Well if we're preparing for the atomic bomb.....why are we doing it on the 6th floor just a few feet away from windows? Shouldn't we be in the cafeteria? I don't even think that would save us, but it's better than being here if the entire city is being blown up."

For reference, our cafeteria was in the basement, and built in the 1950s as a nuclear fallout shelter. The walls were solid concrete. We were 20 feet underground. No windows. Big open floorplan that fit the whole school of 900+ students. Plus it had lunch tables we could hide under. Which were waaaaay stronger then our student desks.

So when I asked why we weren't in the cafeteria, I got told "Ok, fine. Pretend it's a tornado drill. It's the same exercise."

To which I replied "Well with a tornado, we should STILL be in the cafeteria. Didn't you see Wizard of Oz? Dorathy got pulled away because she wasn't underground in the bunker!"

At this point I think she was just getting upset that I was using critical thinking instead of blindly following. So she snapped "FINE! JUST PRETEND IT'S A FIRE DRILL!!!"

To which I asked "In a fire, shouldn't we all leave the burning building and go outside?"

To which she yelled "GO TO THE PRINCIPALS OFFICE!"

Problem is, I didn't understand what I was doing there, and she sent me to go alone. So when I got to the principals office, she wasn't even in her office. So when I spoke to her secretary, she asked me "What's your business with Mrs Loraine?" I just said "I don't know. I think I'm either supposed to hide under her desk, or pretend her office is on fire. I'm not sure which one we're doing yet."

To which she told me, I was being disruptive and rude. A claim I still deny to this day. I was told to see the principal about our drills. I wasn't told what else to do. I simply showed up, and provided the information I had available at the time. Not my fault teachers and principals and offices and whomever else don't communicate, and then get frustrated by being outsmarted by a 6 year old boy.

See boomers? This is why no one likes you, and the whole world is just waiting for you to die and free up all that housing.