“With its rich culture, prosperous business community, and thriving agricultural industry, you’ll find a family-friendly environment ideal for work or play.” This is what you would read if you visited the homepage for the City of Visalia, California, but don’t believe it for a minute; it’s a lie!

I can’t speak about the agricultural industry, but since the World Ag Expo is held not 5 miles away, I’m sure farmers are doing great; but families aren’t. Here are just a few personal experiences that might mean Visalia is not the best place to be.

About a year ago, just after we moved here, my car started getting hit with eggs. Several times over the course of three or four months the paint on the side of my car would be damaged by some sly prankster. I knew even the most adept police force would have little ability to stop the vandal, so I just ignored it. Eventually, I found out that another neighbor was able to catch the vandal, so the egging stopped. The whole business was annoying, but not life-threatening.

Less than a month ago I received a phone call from my credit card company asking me if I had authorized almost ten charges from gas stations all over town between the hours of 11:00pm and 6:00am. Of course I had not, and soon discovered that my wife’s purse had been stolen from our van parked in the driveway. Her iPod as well as her cell phone was in the van, and the thief used about 100 minutes in cell phone calls throughout the night. T-mobile refused to tell us who the criminal had called, even though it was our phone, but they said the police department would be allowed to have access to those records.

I filed a police report, and I thought it would be an easy case, since all the police would need to do is acquire the phone numbers, call the people that the thief had called, and intimidate them into revealing the thief’s name. However, one month later, I still haven’t received a single call regarding the matter, and I’m sure I never will.

Oh, but it gets better. I started writing this article last night, but was unable to finish it, so I saved it to finish today. A few moments ago my wife informed me that someone had vandalized our car. I went out to check the damage myself, and sure enough, someone had walked by with a can of green spray paint and tagged the side of our car. When I called the police station to file a report, I chose all of the appropriate options and the voice prompt told me I was being transferred to the duty officer. However, after one ring, I was sent right back to the main menu again. I tried this several more times with no luck; each time, instead of the duty officer I ended up back at the main menu. Not only that, but there is a long, annoying message in Spanish that Americans have to sit through before they are even given the prompt choices. And yes, I had to listen to the message each time I was sent back to the main menu. Please enjoy this recording of the department’s telephone system.

Of course, there are other interesting encounters I’ve had on the roadways of Visalia: I’ve had people give me the finger, get out of their vehicle at a stop light to spit on my car, and a few other delightful treats. So yeah, now you know what kind of “family-friendly environment” Visalia, California really is.

This is the first entry to what will hopefully be many annoyed rants about being a Central California substitute teacher. Since I have been riding this roller-coaster for a couple of months now, I thought it would be appropriate to share some of the more memorable stories with the one visitor to this website. You know who you are, dad.

A couple of weeks ago I was teaching at a high school here in town. There were about five or six classes, two of them being honors, one of them sheltered English (or ESL), and a couple of regular classes. The ESL students were so pleasant and provided no trouble, but students from the regular classes were being difficult. This appeared to be a fairly affluent school, which accounted for many of the students’ bratty attitudes.

One child in particular wasn’t on the roll sheet, but the other students seemed to know who he was. I probably should have called the office to ask why he wasn’t on the roster, but instead I just wrote his name down.

This student was constantly talking with the other students and being disruptive. I told him to put away his iPod and he pretended to do so, but moments later he had it out again. I told him a second time to put it away and that the next time I would confiscate it. He did not comply so I had him hand it over. After class he asked for it back but I told him he would need to pick it up at the office after school.

Flash forward several hours, this student returned to class and I told him again he would have to wait at the office. But instead of going to the office to wait, he returned with two of his friends. Luckily I had already closed and locked the classroom door, but this did not stop him from pounding on the door and shouting for me to come out. I told him through the door that if they did not return to the office immediately that I would call campus security on them. They were waiting at the office when I got there.

The attendance secretary was surprised when the child told her that he was not a real student at the school but he had some arrangement with the regular teacher to sit in on the class. I don’t know what this arrangement was all about, but it was clearly putting teachers and students at risk, especially when the child had no accountability for his behavior in class.