A five-year-old told his teacher he was going to rip her face off and eat it. She said, "Do you want salt with that?" That's the episode.

A teacher wrote in anonymously, because legally she can't tell you what happens in your kid's classroom. The daily meltdowns. The kicking, the biting, the scissors. The twenty-four other kids told to ignore it. The ten minutes of paperwork for a two-second incident. And the code teachers speak because it's all they're allowed to say: "He had a big day." "We're working on regulation." "Your daughter was very patient today."

Joseph decodes the code, refuses to roast a five-year-old, names the real villain (one teacher, zero assistants, and a gag order), and confesses to being Summers-Off Steve, the guy at the barbecue who says "must be nice, two months off." He said it to a teacher's face. She smiled like a hostage.

Plus three things to actually say: at dinner tonight, to the teacher, and at parent council.

This episode is brought to you by Mathnasium of Newmarket, run by Maria Elisa, a former teacher who found a way to make kids do math on purpose. Two hundred dollars off through the BTC Magazine app. Newmarket. Not Aurora, not Vaughan. Newmarket.

Joseph's memoir THE DAD DIARIES is out now, published by Cormorant Books. Signed copies at thedaddiaries.com, also on Amazon and Indigo.

Got a mess of your own? Send it to info@jeopublishing.com.

More at betweenthecoversmag.com, or read the magazine free in the BTC Magazine app, iOS and Android.

Bitch Fest is a Between the Covers production.

Three weeks into the school year I got an email saying my daughter was being switched to another class. So I went into that school like I was about to personally replace the Ministry of Education. No training. No experience. Just a daughter and a fucking opinion.

Then they told me why. Funding cuts. A class being cut. The secretary now splitting her time between two schools. The vice principal, same thing. Half here, half there. I'd come in to complain about the mess. They were the ones trying to make the mess work.

This one is about the school office, where every parent starts with "sorry, just a quick thing" and it is never a quick thing. About a woman being "shared" like a plate of cookies, when putting her name on a second schedule does not create a second woman. About who's doing the other half. About the new sign outside the school that gets more adults than the problem it's standing in front of. And about the appreciation mugs, when what she actually needs is a job posting.

And I'm in this one. I was the parent who walked in at full volume. Apparently my interest in education funding was waiting for a personal invitation, and it arrived in my inbox.

No school named. No board named. On purpose.

Teachers, EAs, secretaries, parents: tell me what's happening. Send it through the free BTC Magazine app (App Store or Google Play). I will not name your school and I will not name your board.

THE DAD DIARIES, my memoir, is out now. It's the story of how I became a father to my girls and everything it took to get there. Signed copies at thedaddiaries.com, also on Amazon and Indigo.

This is Joseph Tito, and I bitch so you don't have to.

Got a mess of your own? Send it to info@jeopublishing.com.

More at betweenthecoversmag.com, or read the magazine free in the BTC Magazine app, iOS and Android.

Bitch Fest is a Between the Covers production.

A woman writes in about a husband who has appointed himself Head of Loss Prevention for their marriage. He supervises her at the self-checkout. He audits the grocery bill. He announces to an entire restaurant that he is not tipping.

None of these places employ him.

Joseph calls him Dave, because this is Dave behaviour, and because Dave has been radicalized by a debit terminal. The trouble is that Dave isn't wrong. Tipping screens are out of control, the cereal box is a pamphlet, and they made the toilet paper narrower and thought nobody would notice. Being right about the problem still doesn't entitle you to become the town crier at a sandwich counter.

Also: the Italian mothers of Woodbridge who drove to three stores with a flyer and a pen and were right about all of it, a confession involving a twelve-dollar item on a patio bill, and sixty-eight thousand loyalty points being guarded like offshore money.

Next week: the coworkers who are not your friends, and the birthday card that proved it.

Joseph's memoir THE DAD DIARIES is out September 26th. Signed copies at thedaddiaries.com, or pre-order anywhere you buy books.

Got a mess of your own? Send it to info@jeopublishing.com.

More at betweenthecoversmag.com — or read the magazine free in the BTC Magazine app, iOS and Android.

Bitch Fest is a Between the Covers production.