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.