Roy Exum
After three full inches of snow blanketed northern Virginia last Thursday, a high school senior named Devraj Kori - his friends call him “Dave” – pondered the slippery mess during his lunch break at Lake Braddock Secondary School and wondered why they didn’t close the schools on a day such as this.
Dave, who has a 3.977 grade point average, knows well how to ask a question so he called the chief operating officer of the Fairfax County school system, Dean Tistadt, to find out why. No one answered the phone at the superintendent’s office so Dave then called Tistadt’s home number and that is when a delicious series of events fell into place.
Remember the movie, “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off?” It was about a saucy kid who skipped a day of school and, to the delight of children of all ages everywhere, the hysterical comedy is now somewhat a cult classic. Of course, the kid, brilliantly played by Matthew Broderick, comes out smelling like a rose at the end of the movie and, if ever they make a sequel, perhaps Devraj Kori should have a cameo role.
You see, no one answered the phone when Dave called Tistadt’s home number either, but Dave left his question on the answering machine, along with his name and cell phone number. And when the school official’s wife, Candy Tistadt, got home and retrieved the message, she went ballistic.
"How dare you call us at home! If you have a problem with going to school, you do not call somebody's house and complain about it," her tirade began, which lasted over a minute according to a story in the Washington Post.
She also railed against “snotty-nosed little brats" and gave our Dave a final reprimand that went, "Get over it, kid, and go to school!"
Kori was in class and didn’t get the message until later, but, when he did, he figured it was strong enough to be transferred onto an audio link on his Facebook page on the Internet. He also wrote a line that went, “Let them know what you think about the schools not being canceled” and provided Dean Tisadt’s work and home numbers.
Well, the Tistadts' phone is still ringing and the irate voice of Candy Tistadt is now bouncing around the Internet faster than the tennis balls at the Australian Open. Thousands have now listened to the tape on YouTube and several television stations, including some in Fairfax County, have aired it.
If you think three inches of snow causes a mess, you have no idea what a smart kid and the Internet can do.
Dave, who is playing it every bit as smart as Ferris did in the movie, innocently proclaimed that when he was unsuccessful in reaching the school's CEO at work, he saw no harm in his request of a public official at home. He pointed out the Tistadt telephone number is listed in the telephone book and felt he had a basic right to ask about a decision that affected him and his classmates.
A member of the school’s debate team, Dave said he felt he was merely exercising his freedom of speech in posting the information on his Facebook site and told Michael Alison Chandler of the Washington Post the differing interpretations of what he did were probably due to the generation gap. “People in my generation view privacy differently. We are the cell phone generation and we are used to being reached at all time.”
Paul Regnier, a spokesman for the school system and an employee who works under Tistadt, had a different view. He told the reporter, “It’s really an issue of kids learning what is acceptable and what is not acceptable. Any call to a public servant’s house is harassment.”
But the best part of all came from Dean Tistadt himself. His embattled wife wasn’t about to say anything, but the “public servant” praised Dave for “the courage of his convictions and for his willingness to “stand up and be identified.”
But then he admitted, “This (whole thing) has been horrible for her.” He cited the endless stream of calls, the embarrassment and the grief Candy Tistadt has been forced to bear and then said both he and his wife have learned a very hard lesson.
And up in northern Virginia, as Devraj “Dave” Kori climbs into his bed at night, I lay heavy odds he has the same look on his face that Ferris Bueller wore at the end, just before the movie rolled the credits.
royexum@aol.com