Whosiwhatsits on First

Some work days run smoothly. I barely arrive and log on to the fifty-eleven sites I need to use for filling the thirsty vessels entrusted to me with knowledge, and the day is done. Fini. Time flies when you're busy with your filling station.

Occasionally, it's a matter of one step forward and five steps back. Nothing goes according to plan.

Textbooks are abandoned and must be reunited with the abandoner
Students forget they were potty-trained thirteen years ago, and must go RIGHT NOW
One needs the nurse
Two need in-school suspension work for tomorrow
Three forgot their make-up work
Four remembered to bring it
Five need a pencil
Six announcements blare over the intercom
Seven calls (heh, heh, who am I kidding, only seven, that'll be the day) come in from the office
A stack of homebound work from September arrives via an office worker
A new kid shows up and sits down without so much as flashing a copy of her schedule
An old kid moves away, and the office needs the grade on the checkout sheet
A tech school kid insists on wearing half a pair of safety glasses until I insist he doesn't
A hoodie is put on the floor, and the kid in front of it scoots his chair and rips off the cuff
A fart rings out like the shot heard round the world
 
And, well, some days, you really earn your salary, as our superintendent once told me, kind of like my principal at a different school told me not to stress, because you just can't make chicken salad out of...um...you just can't make chicken salad without the main ingredient.

So it should come as no surprise that on a day such as this, TODAY, Mrs. Thevictorian had a bit of an Abbott and Costello moment with a fellow faculty member.

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RingRingRing

Hello?

Hi. Did Miss Whosiwhatsits get her IBM t-shirt?

Uh...how would I know?

Can you ask her?

That's going to be kind of difficult. She's on the other side of this concrete-block wall.

Nuh uh.

Yuh huh.

Isn't she in your room?

Why would she be in MY room? She had her OWN room. On the other side of that concrete-block wall.

But...Miss Sec told me she was in your room this hour.

Nope. I'm looking. But she definitely is not in HERE. Do you need the number for her room?

Oh! I don't mean the TEACHER Miss Whosiwhatsits. I mean the STUDENT Miss Whosiwhatsits.

OHHHHH. She's right here. Hey! Firstname Whosiwhatsits! Did you get your IBC t-shirt?

Um. Yeahhh. I got it.

Not IBC! IBM!

Well, whatever that t-shirt was, she says she got it.

Okay. That's all I needed.

I guess we're even. You mixed me up with her name, and I mixed up your club.

Yep. We're even. Bye now.

Hey! Firstname Whosiwhatsits! Does Mrs. Phone-y call you MISS in her class?

I don't even have her class.

Oh. Because I was confusing Miss Whosiwhatsits, the before-marriage name of Mrs. Whatchamacallit, with you. And I wondered if she calls you MISS WHOSIWHATSITS in class.

Yeah. I don't even have Mrs. Phone-y's class. I'm just in her club.

Duly noted.
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Some days, I really earn my chicken not-salad.