Thursday, September 6, 2012

Mother Nature Cannot Be Mocked

A storm hit just as we left school today. The black cloud hung over our black Tahoe like a cloud of depression hanging over a little cartoon dude in an old-school Zoloft commercial. Fat raindrops plopped on the hot windshield. The temperature dropped from 90 to 75 in half an hour.

As we wended our way through one small town, then the next, the storm remained the same. No more rain. No less rain. To put it in physics teacher talk, we were on the fulcrum of ol' lever storm. Perfectly balanced. Until we weren't.

I made a left turn and all precipitation ceased. "Hey!" I called over my shoulder to The Pony. "Where'd all that rain go?"

"You turned the corner and got away from it," he said without looking up from his laptop.

Yes. We gave the rain the slip. Not like little Theodore Cleaver gave Miss Landers the slip on the last day of school, instead of the monogrammed handkerchiefs June had picked out and had gift-wrapped and delivered by the department store. The slip. An escape. Like Mary Clancy and Rachel Devery were always trying to give Marvel Ann in The Trouble With Angels.

Oh, the precipitation found us again several miles down the road. Right about the time I was driving one-handed, wearing out my other arm by patting myself on the back. We were not very good slippers, it seems.

But for a short while, I felt like I was getting away with something.

8 comments:

  1. You can fool mother nature, but not forever.

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  2. Or like the Tim Robbins character did in "The Shawshank Redemption"--along a whole "river" of excrement...

    Yes, you need to practice being slippery. Perhaps some of your students could be your tutors?

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  3. Stephen,
    You can fool Mother Nature some of the time. But she can exact revenge all of the time. She's a harsh taskmistress, that ol' gal.

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    Sioux,
    I refuse tutoring from the slippery students. Like the one who wiped a LONG string of snot on the underside of the desk, which I found when I picked it up to move it back into the row. I'm still gagging. Despite Germ-Xing within an inch of my life. And that was five years ago. There is no statute of limitations on desk snot.

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  4. I gotta love any blog posts that contain references to Theodore Cleaver, Miss Landers, June Cleaver, Mary Clancy and Rachel....BUT I'm really sorry I just read your comment back to Sioux. Now I'M the one gagging. Puh-leeeeze, Ms. Val, start with a warning next time.... :(

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  5. Becky,
    Oh, you dear sweet thing! Welcome to MY world. Where there are no warnings. I assure you that reading about it can't hold a candle to living it. I am simply trying to open a window to world of teaching, lest laymen assume that our days are filled with smiling cherubs thoughtfully thanking us for educating them.

    That's why we get paid the big bucks, you know. Desk snot.

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  6. I really do understand the real world of teachers and thank goodness there are people like you who are crazy enough to....uh, I mean smart and daring enough to be teachers! And hey...smiling cherubs?....you did mention Beaver Cleaver, ya know!! :)
    Have a wonderful weekend, you crazy...uh smart teacher, you!

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  7. Desk snot. The one thought I took from this post. Did you drop the offending desk when your fingers made contact?

    Many years ago, when I was but a child, my uncle took my grandmother to the new Dairy Queen and treated her to her very first soft serve cone. My grandmother had a fourth grade education, but was wise in the ways of the world. Meaning that she knew that ice cream came from the milk and cream that came from cows.

    Stay with me now, while I recount the story that was told for years. My uncle, aunt, and their 4 children were enjoying the outing and eating their cones, when suddenly, my grandmother pulled something clear and viscous from her cone. She proclaimed it to be cow snot, although, now that I am older and wiser, I am sure it was egg white. She threw her cone out and never indulged in soft serve ice cream again. She prefered to make her own ice cream, since she knew that she would never leave a pail of milk where a cow could blow her nose in it.

    Ahhh, memories ....... like the shadows of my mind.

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  8. Becky,
    We live for the weekends, you know. And SUMMER.

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    Kathy,
    I DID drop the desk! And started gagging, and held my hand out like...well...like it was dangling some desk snot, and ran for the Germ-X. One of the girls in class had to run to the bathroom to vomit. After the bell, I went to scrub the offending hand with hot water and soap. Then used more Germ-X. The teacher's friend.

    The thought I took from your comment was: Dairy Queen has REAL ice cream? I'm guessing that these days, Dairy Queen pours their ice cream out of a bag of powdered mix. Not that I have insider knowledge or anything. Times have changed.

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