Val Measures Out Her Life In Back-To-Schools

By the time you read this, The Pony and I will hopefully have survived the first day of our last year of high school. And we will hopefully have kicked it off the same way we have kicked off all the other school years since about 2008…by listening to “Back to School Migration” on my CD Teacher of the Year by Judy Domeny Bowen. I don’t have a monetary stake in this. I simply love this gal’s songs about teachers. Here's an Amazon link where you can listen to a snippet. No, it's not going to win a Grammy. But the lyrics are so true if you've ever been a teacher.

So…remember way back when Val was getting a new used car? Back in the middle of summer? And then Hick pitched a hissy fit over leaving several minutes earlier or later, who knows with that guy and his geriatric gesticulations, and Val did NOT get her replacement T-Hoe, even though the old black car had been scrubbed and shined and vacuumed within a half-mile of his life?

Guess what is missing now that (at this writing) we are a scant 42 hours out from the bbbrrrrriiiiiiing of the first bell? Hold on. That’s not entirely accurate. We don’t have a bell. We have a tone. In fact, it confuses all the freshmen the first time they hear it. “What’s that? Are we on fire? Is this some kind of drill? What do we do?” No, my tender neophytes. That is what we call a bell over here in our building that was built after the turn of the century. But typing about how far away we are from the first boooop is not quite as dramatic. And it’s 42 hours.

Every day, Hick leaves The Pony instructions for chores while he is at work. I’m sure he would like to do the same for me, but as you know, Val’s having none of that. Besides, this is her second day back to work. And she thought, in the wee hours, when a teacher is laying in bed but her mind is not at rest, “I wonder where my teacher CD is? Maybe The Pony should spend the day looking for it. I sure won’t have time, not with open house tonight.” So she planned on breaking the news to The Pony before she left at the crack of 6:40 a.m.

Because The Pony is a good egg, and should be allowed to enjoy what’s left of his last two days of vacation, Val took a look for herself. In the likely areas where junk carted in from T-Hoe’s center console might have resided for a month or more, unnoticed, gathering dust. Like in the area around the kitchen table. Or on the coffee table. Or end table where The Pony has amassed a leaning tower of college brochures and postcards. But the CD was not there. Like it has disappeared off the face of Val’s messy hoarder house. What good is a hoarder house if a vital piece of your hoard is missing? No dadgum good! That’s what!

As Hick was leaving at 6:00, and The Pony still abed, not up eating a Little Debbie like he had professed the night before, Val brought up the subject of the object of her desire.

“Remember back when I thought I was getting a new car? But you made sure I didn’t? And The Pony cleaned out the old car, and—“

“VAL! You can still get new car! You just have to pick one out so—“

“I don’t want a new car right now! I am busy starting the school year! I was going to ask you about that stuff The Pony took out—“

“I know!”

“What do you mean, you KNOW? Are you psychic all of a sudden? I was going to give The Pony his chore today, to find—“

“I know where that stuff is! Over in the BARn.”

“No. It would not be in the BARn. Why would—“

“You mean your teacher CD? It’s in a Walmart sack over in the BARn. That’s where we cleaned out the car.”

“Oh. Then I guess The Pony doesn’t need to spend his time looking for it today.”

Seriously. You’d think he might have told me where all my car stuff was for that last six weeks. At least our record shall remain unbroken. "Going baaaack to school...it's an annual migration..."