Do people actually get stuffed in lockers?

January 3, 2010 6:24 PM

Do people actually get stuffed in lockers?

It's a standard joke that in certain schools, the bullies stuff the kids they don't like in lockers.

Is this actually true, or is it just Something That People Say? (I didn't go to the sort of high school where that would have happened, and our lockers weren't large enough anyway.)

posted by madcaptenor to society & culture (40 answers total)

I was the proper size and shape and dork level in high school to get stuffed in a locker if such things happened, and that never even came close to happening to me. So, anecdotally, no.
posted by Night_owl at 6:28 PM on January 3, 2010

Yes, it happens. Saw it happen three different times at my high school and once at my middle school
posted by strixus at 6:29 PM on January 3, 2010

I stuffed myself in a locker once, just to prove that I wouldn't fit. (I was wrong, I *did* fit)
posted by MuChao at 6:30 PM on January 3, 2010 [3 favorites]

I saw this happen once, in middle school. The victim was told to get in the locker (and he complied), rather than physically "stuffed" inside by the perpetrator.
posted by hovizette at 6:33 PM on January 3, 2010

We prefer to duct tape or plastic wrap people to benches or flag poles around these parts.
posted by iamabot at 6:33 PM on January 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I got in a locker once to prove I could. Then those who pretended to not believe I could fit subsequently locked me in. I was in there maybe 5 minutes but it seemed like an hour. They weren't really bullies, I was just an idiot.
posted by little miss s at 6:34 PM on January 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

I got in a locker once to prove I could. Then those who pretended to not believe I could fit subsequently locked me in. I was in there maybe 5 minutes but it seemed like an hour. They weren't really bullies, I was just an idiot.

Me too. All of that. I doubt I was even in there for as long as five minutes, though.
posted by craichead at 6:38 PM on January 3, 2010

little miss s: in college a friend of a friend, who was fairly small, stuffed herself in a clothes dryer. If I remember correctly it was a student government campaign stunt, and pictures were taken, although I don't remember why this made sense.
posted by madcaptenor at 6:42 PM on January 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was stuffed in a locker against my will my freshman year of high school. The ringleader among the kids who did it got expelled (this wasn't his first offense and the administration was looking to get rid of him), and a rookie teacher who witnessed it and did nothing about it got something like a half-day paid suspension and ice in his soup at lunch the next day.
posted by The Potate at 6:54 PM on January 3, 2010 [4 favorites]

I have spent time in a locker. A whole class period. My brother put me there. He was a senior when I was a freshman.
posted by Duffington at 6:57 PM on January 3, 2010

Same experience as MuChao. Didn't get subsequently locked in - we were all dorks and we were trying to figure out which of us could fit. (Two of us could.)

I did, however, witness a duct-taping, which is much more 'one size fits all'.
posted by cobaltnine at 6:58 PM on January 3, 2010

Upon reflection, it can't have been that long, but it was terrifying at the time.
posted by Duffington at 7:03 PM on January 3, 2010

I'm exactly average size for a guy (5'10") and I once hid in a locker for a couple hours to avoid being caught in a lock-in party without having paid.

It was extremely uncomfortable.
posted by notsnot at 7:03 PM on January 3, 2010

First, the bully doesn't care if you'll fit. Humiliation is the goal. So if you don't fit, so much the better you fat dork!

Also, what The Potate says, teachers suck at stopping this crap. Some kids are pretty damn big, some teachers not so much, so when it comes down to measuring your paycheck against personal harm, sorry, sometimes the kid gets stuffed in the locker.

I've been on both sides of the bullying equation. I grew up and apologized to those that deserved it. On dark nights I still fantasize about stuff parts of my bullies into a locker.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:07 PM on January 3, 2010

At my elementary, middle, and high schools, this never happened.

People never stole lunch money, either. And, while we're on the subject of children's TV myths, broccoli is delicious.
posted by papayaninja at 7:13 PM on January 3, 2010

Don't think this happens at my school. Though most kids don't even use their lockers, so that would probably work against it. I'm not even sure where my locker is.
posted by kylej at 7:16 PM on January 3, 2010

I wonder if this is why there were half-lockers at my middle and high schools. There were more than enough to go around, but they were all divided in half anyway, so no one would have fit in them (I was small for my age and there was no way I would have fit).
posted by peanut_mcgillicuty at 7:23 PM on January 3, 2010

papayaninja: apparently people's tastes in food can change as they get older. Broccoli may be delicious to adults but not to children.
posted by madcaptenor at 7:25 PM on January 3, 2010

My high school lockers were roughly 1'x1'x1' cubes. If someone were to have been stuffed in one, it would have been, er, rather messy.
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 7:27 PM on January 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was stuffed in a locker. By a "friend" who was "totally joking." 8th grade, the "friend" and I are both female, it was a gym class locker not a book locker (thus, not out in halls where a teacher might see). Fortunately it didn't last very long.
posted by naoko at 7:35 PM on January 3, 2010

Happened to me: the 18"x18"x4' kind of locker.

Since the handle workings are exposed on the inside, and they didn't lock it, it was trivial to get out of; humiliation was their intent, and didn't require elaborate planning like having a lock handy.

Some of them are in jail now; the rest are poor. Good times!
posted by IAmBroom at 7:45 PM on January 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

The lockers in all my schools were 1/2 or 1/3 lockers - far too small to stuff a person into. And I'm sure if it had been possible the girls that tormented me throughout my freshman year would have tried.

We wished to be like kids at rich schools, with their Members Only jackets and full lockers.

Broccoli may be delicious to adults but not to children. My 6 year old refuses to eat any vegetable except broccoli. The only possible explanation is that broccoli is delicious to children.
posted by jeoc at 8:17 PM on January 3, 2010

Never happened in my middle school or high school - but our lockers were super skinny, and I can't imagine anyone would fit into one.
posted by SisterHavana at 8:53 PM on January 3, 2010

A person I know well and his best high school friend stuffed the insufferable son of their high school principal into a P.E. locker. I still laugh when I think about it.
posted by Lynsey at 9:32 PM on January 3, 2010

We didn't get stuffed into lockers - we got stuffed into instrument room slots, as one of many freshman year marching band hazing rituals. It wasn't so bad, as long as you were with a few other people.
posted by honeybee413 at 9:49 PM on January 3, 2010

I was locked in a locker from lunch until well after the end of the day in junior high school. (Thanks for walking by, guidance counsellor!)
posted by Jairus at 10:06 PM on January 3, 2010

I know one guy who was stuffed in a garbage can and then placed on top of the lockers. I (kinda) agree with a person I once dated who told me, "I could never love anyone who liked high school."
posted by thebrokedown at 10:08 PM on January 3, 2010 [2 favorites]

I have spent time in a locker. A whole class period. My brother put me there.

Me too! My older brother and his friend. It was a PE locker, way far away from anywhere well trafficked. He came back to let me out. But it was certainly something that happened to others too. This was in Sweden, by the way, so it's not a U.S.-only thing.
posted by gemmy at 10:26 PM on January 3, 2010

No actual locker stuffing but I did get some swirlies and other cliche' bully crap in middle school.

I was *hit* with a locker door once, but that's it.
posted by The Whelk at 10:55 PM on January 3, 2010

We helped a kid go into a half locker, curl up, and locked him in there, to prove that he could (this was middle school, he was tiny). But we were just bored, we let him out immediately after. (He would get into various small spaces to prove that he could a lot)
posted by NoraReed at 11:10 PM on January 3, 2010 [1 favorite]

I just realized that totally made me sound like a dick. He climbed into the locker and we closed it to prove that we could, then immediately opened it.
posted by NoraReed at 11:21 PM on January 3, 2010

yes my friend pierre,
was stuffed upside down in a locker in high school and locked in
posted by compound eye at 11:40 PM on January 3, 2010

It does happen, but only in public school.


just kidding, happens everywhere. The biggest prank at my school though was to put food in someone elses backpack while they were'nt looking - like dump a huge helping of cafeteria peach cobbler all over their notebooks.
posted by WeekendJen at 7:33 AM on January 4, 2010

absolutely true story from my middle school because I saw it with my own eyes. One of the kids in my class removed the sheet metal screws from the back of his locker and realized there was a fairly spacious gap back there, past his locker but before the next locker bay. He used to skip classes back there fairly often. There were rumors of girls back there too, but I can't confirm or deny that.
posted by TomMelee at 7:47 AM on January 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Speaking as the third of three boys in my family, yes it happens. Not just lockers...garbage cans, cabinets, storage bins...basically anything into which a nine year old can be shoved.
posted by cp7 at 8:25 AM on January 4, 2010

TomMelee, how big is a spacious gap?
posted by craven_morhead at 9:10 AM on January 4, 2010

I had it happen to me a few times, but they were band lockers for tubas. Not actual skinny metal lockers.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:32 AM on January 4, 2010

in college a friend of a friend, who was fairly small, stuffed herself in a clothes dryer

Yeah, we did the same, but involuntarily, to a friend in college. What can I say, we were young and stupid.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:33 AM on January 4, 2010

It did happen once in my high school that I'm aware of. But -- and this is the reason I'm bothering to post this, since you obviously have confirmation from others that it happens -- there was a huge amount of a media awareness in the act itself. It wasn't so much "I'm going to stuff you in a locker and humiliate you, you little geek" as "I'm going to stuff you in a locker and humiliate you like all those geeks on TV".

It might well have happened long before it became a common trope, but I suspect that the tropiness of it has made the actual act more common.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:35 AM on January 4, 2010

Good question craven. We never measured. However, at the start of 7th grade I weighted 82lbs and was well under 5 feet tall, so my perspective might have been skewed. I'd say it was an easy couple feet. Enough that he could get back there and sit or lay down, probably even turn around without much hassle. Pretty sure he napped while back there.

The locker bays were in sort of an E shape, his was on the back wall. So imagine a backwards E behind that E, and a few rows of concrete blocks between them. That's where he was, in the gap between the blocks and the back of the next locker bay.
posted by TomMelee at 10:36 AM on January 4, 2010