Even Steven toys with me. He fancies himself to be quite the comedian.
Thursday morning, I arrived at school at 1:50 a.m. That's what my wall clock told me. So I had to find a tall kid to take it down. But wouldn't you know it, the ONE day all year that Tall Kid didn't walk his girlfriend past my room to class was Thursday. So I had to find a small, wiry kid instead, who was willing to stand on a chair. Then I couldn't get the battery loose. So Small Wiry Kid did it for me. The old battery said MAR 2016. The battery I replaced it with said JAN 2010.
During my 2nd hour plan time, the lights went out. They're on a timer. So if I don't move within ten minutes, the lights go out. When I flapped my arms to make them come back on, the one above my desk did not. I have six lights. The worst one possible was out.
I went to enter scores in my gradebook program, but my detachable number pad would not work. The green light was out. I fiddled and faddled with the plug-in places on my laptop and dock until I got it to work. However...my mouse went dead. Twenty minutes of trial and error later, I had both in working order. "Why didn't you just use the little rolly mouse dealybobber on your keyboard between the G and the H?" you might ask. Here's why. It was gone. It had disappeared overnight. From the time I locked the door at 3:30 p.m. and unlocked it at 1:50 a.m.--oh, excuse me--at 7:35 a.m., that tiny round touchy thing had vanished. I was left with a square red plastic fixture that looked like a tiny fuse I used to plug into my car dashboards fuse box to make the lights work again.
"But Val," you say, because you are quite talkative with me while reading my posts, kind of like folks yelling advice at the actors in a horror movie, "what makes him Even Steven? A more appropriate name might be Take-Away Tommy."
He is still Even Steven because I got a balance of karma from him.
In the negative column we have:
dead clock
no Tall Kid
stuck battery
burned-out light
tampered laptop accouterments
missing keyboard mouse mini rolling ball thingy
In the positive column I received:
working clock
Small Wiry Kid
battery unstuck by tiny fingers of Small Wiry Kid
librarian had weather videos I requested sent to my room within five minutes
avoided collision when six-point buck ran across the road twenty feet in front of Tahoe
bagger in Walmart knew what she was doing
Yeah. He's not tit-for-tat, that Even Steven. But my karma is balanced. The earth will continue to spin on its axis.
We Even Stevens (Stephens) never get credit for keeping the world spinning off its axis. Someone needs to change this...someone named VAL.
ReplyDeleteGood karma does come our way occasionally. I recently had a close call. An interloper was trying to horn in during an official WWWP event, but thankfully, THAT collision was avoided. (I'm built Ram-tough. My version of the 6-pointer would not have survived.)
ReplyDeleteYou should have your own TV show, I'm telling you!
ReplyDeleteBatteries with laughable expiration dates, a dead mouse, arm flapping light activation, missing rolly mouse dealybobber, six point smart enough to get out of the way--all believable but a bagger in Walmart knew what she was doing? Nah, don't believe that one.
ReplyDeleteStephen,
ReplyDeleteI will make it my mission, by cracky!
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Sioux,
Well. I'm shaking in my Crocs. I would never dream of trying to come between you and your WWWPs. Why am I picturing that scene in Mean Girls where the school bus hits Regina George, and YOU ARE BEHIND THE WHEEL?
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Linda,
Of course it would be an unscripted reality show, because truth IS funnier than fiction.
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Leenie,
I know, right? That bagger needs to be hoisted on a pedestal, bronzed, and mounted on top of the store. If she doesn't survive, so be it. We're talking about motivating a large work force, here.
The way I knew that SHE knew what she was doing is that I never gave the bagging a second thought. I actually placed them in the back of my Tahoe without once muttering, "What kind of idiot puts a box of tall kitchen trash bags on top of a bunch of bananas on top of baby tomatoes still on the vine in a net bag?"