Story Time With Rob: Grace’s New Security Officer and Former “Baby Dracula”
Media on the left provided by Fiona Miller ‘26. Media on the right provided by Robinson Santos.
This year, Grace welcomed a new security guard: Robinson Santos, also known as Rob!
He is the friendly face who greets us every morning, and he is the hand that waves goodbye to us at the end of the day. You may have been lucky enough to have seen Rob while he was hard at work memorizing his “freshman flashcards” and been invited to join in on the game. Rob knows a lot of people at the high school, but Grace does not yet know much about Rob. In this debut, Rob shares a bit about himself and a fun childhood story.
(Here is the transcription)
Rob: My name is Robinson Santos. [Spanish] is my first language, and then I came here and then switched over to English, so Spanish is now my second language.
Fiona: Oh, okay.
Rob: Yeah, it’s crazy.
Fiona: That’s cool. And … you said you came over here. Did you live somewhere else?
Rob: Oh, I used to live in Puerto Rico.
Fiona: When did you move? Like, how old were you?
Rob: I moved here when I was seven.
Fiona: Where did you move when you moved here?
Rob: I moved from Puerto Rico to New York.
Fiona: Do you remember a lot about Puerto Rico? Like, were you kind of sad to move?
Rob: Yeah, but I was sad. But a lot of things about Puerto Rico are the hurricanes.
Fiona: Yeah, is that why you left?
Rob: Yeah, the hurricanes were crazy. It was devastating, our area particularly. Every year, without fail, just pop, pop. Move, we definitely moved three houses. And after the third house, it was like, no, we gotta go.
Fiona: Wow. And what brought you to Grace?
Rob: My friend, one of my best friends, used to work here. Don’t know if you guys know him, his name is Percy.
Fiona: So he recommended the school to you, or were you looking for a position?
Rob: Yeah, because I was looking for just any position in security that would fit what I was looking for, and this place pretty much has everything. But I actually wanted something a little less than this.
Fiona: Less in what way? Like, less serious?
Rob: Oh, this is, this is quite, well, that. But, this is actually quite intensive.
Fiona: Yeah, and all your memorizing student’s names.
Rob: Yes, I have to memorize the names of not only the students, the teachers, and the non teachers. By non-teachers, I mean people who use the building but don’t actually have anything to do with the building. And then you also gotta remember the names of the parents and the executives, if that makes sense. This is a lot. But I’m getting there.
Our first try at the “Story Time With” question…
Fiona: What is something you wish you could have told your younger self?
Rob: When I was first starting off in security, every time I would see a famous person, instead of just acting cool, I’d be like, Oh my gosh!
So, yeah. Probably got a lot in trouble with that, because they don’t like security people who acknowledge the celebrities.
Rob was struggling to come up with a long story on the spot. We got to talking about random things when finally, we found a gem! Story starts here…
Rob: I remember when I was younger, I was playing in the park, and then two kids were racing on their bikes, and then I just jumped out of the grass in the park, and then the bike hit me directly in the face, causing one of my baby teeth to be sharpened.
So, I had a tooth that looked like a vampire, you know, a little vampire tooth. For a while, I was like the baby vampire. Then one time I tripped, and I landed on a kid’s head with the tooth, and immediately it just punctured and it just … it looked like a bloody scene.
Photo of Rob as a baby with his vampire tooth. Media provided by Robinson Santos
Fiona: Now, did you chomp out of his head or just…
Rob: Yeah, so, he was in front, we were going down the stairs, so he was in the front, and then I tripped, and then he was just walking down the stairs regularly, and then I tripped, and I went right on his head, and then you just saw the little stream of blood coming out.
When my parents found out about this, they had a natural reaction: immediately took me to the orthodontist to get that tooth pulled out. I feel like it was an exaggeration, but I got to see a lot of weird things, cause she took me to this, what do you call this? It was like one of those, you know, there’s like a, not an event, but, like a disaster. And you have emergency doctors and tents and stuff like that just out in the open. It was something like that. And so there were a bunch of doctors, dentists, and things just spread out..
Fiona: Where was this? Puerto Rico.
Rob: Yeah.
Fiona: Oh, in Puerto Rico, okay. Wait, so it was like an emergency room, but like outdoors?
Rob: Yeah, it was … strange. It was so strange, because I’d never seen something that looked like it … was like a field hospital or something. But, yeah, I sat down with this really big person—not that he was fat, he was a little bit chunky. But he was just huge, and all his equipment was small. Like, I was small. And the equipment was smaller. So, a huge person, tiny, tiny tools, and he was the person in charge of getting the tools out. And to this day, I’ve just—Why would I think about that?
Either way, he popped out the tooth. And then, more blood came out. And then they didn’t let me keep the tooth, which made me sad.
Fiona: Aww, your vampire tooth!
Rob: Yes, it was dope.
Fiona: Did you know this kid? Or did you ever see the kid again?
Rob: So it was two girls, and they were older.
Fiona: You punctured two girls’ heads?
Rob: Oh, sorry, for the person who hit me in the face with the bike. That was two girls. And the kid, yeah, we went to the same school, but that was my last year there before I had to come over here. So I never saw or heard from them again. So they probably are as scarred as I am.
Regardless of his vampire past, Rob is a bright and cheerful addition to the Grace community. Make sure to say hello to him at the front door. Maybe even stop by for a game of Guess that Freshman!
Fiona Miller ‘26, the author, is a staff writer for The Grace Gazette. This article was transcribed with the help of Descript.com.