What My Co-Workers Really Think of Me

It's no secret that I have control issues.

My close colleagues don't hesitate to mention it. Remind me that it's the school's laptop, not mine, and if I'm absent, there's no harm in one of them popping in to borrow it for the day. I beg to differ. But according to our technology minder, my colleagues are right. It doesn't seem fair. I baby my equipment. Who knows what indignities it may suffer while I'm away? The thought of a substitute fondling it is bad enough. Let the record show that I am rarely absent.

Any card-carrying member of The American Association of Handwriting Analysts could walk into my classroom and peg me write away (heh, heh, that's probably a joke those handwriting analysts use all the time) for the control freak that I am. My writing on the white board, all evenly-spaced and chalk-line-straight enough to please a master carpenter, would be a dead giveaway. I print in all caps, for cryin' out loud!

Earlier this week, my room was not swept. It's nobody's fault. We only have two-and-a-half custodians for a regular full-sized high school. And they have to double as bus drivers as the need arises. Much in the way you can't get blood from a turnip, you can't squeeze extra hours of work out of staff for no pay. It's not right. If they only have time to dump the wastebasket when they get back from an emergency route, so be it. I totally understand.

At the lunch table, I asked if Custodian had been absent that day. Because, you see, it is very unlike Custodian to leave my room unswept. Custodian is ultra efficient, terribly thorough, and takes pride in a job well done every day. So I was simply checking to see if something was amiss. To illustrate why I inquired as to the whereabouts/health issues of Custodian, I gave an example.

"I came in this morning, and it looked like my room had not been swept. I found a broken mechanical pencil and a sticky note on the floor. Of course I picked them up. It's not that big a deal. Luckily I have my seventh hour students line up their desks and chairs every day. You know, the only thing that was messy was the pencil and sticky note. Because, ha ha, I'm such a master teacher that nothing else gets messed up."

A colleague to my right agreed. "Val runs a tight ship. The sticky note probably had a message on it: "Sorry about the pencil."

I Think I Lost It, Let Me Know if You Come Across It

Must I write about writing on this blog? That smacks of a coffee table book about coffee tables, in my opinion. Which is all that counts, I suppose. It is MY blog. Which I started in order to be different from my everyday blog.

Sometimes I feel pressure to dish out advice that nobody needs. There are many sites where one can garner a daily dose of writing tips. Sites operated by qualified, experienced writers. I don't know where that pressure comes from. Most likely the universe, conspiring against me again, giving me pause when I should be blissfully writing up a storm. Or at least a submission.

I could do it, you know. Dispense that unneeded advice. I'm quite versatile. I could turn everything around by the end of the post and tie up a lesson with a pretty red bow. Because I'm a teacher, you see. I know how to spin things. But something makes me want to dig in my heels and refuse, like a sleep-starved toddler who does not want to be dropped off at daycare.

My enjoyment comes from dishing out a daily dose of skewed humor. Funny-bone ticklers. Mirth candy. To turn up the corners of someone's pursed lips a smidgen more than Mona Lisa's. Or at least to elicit a response of, "That didn't suck as much as I thought it would." Nothing makes me happier (okay, that cliche is a bit overstated here) than pounding out a post that makes me smile smugly, and give myself a virtual pat on the back. This, however, is not one of those posts.

This quick-fingered blog ninja needs to brush up on her basics, and bring back the funny.

Another Case of Workplace Violins

You would think, would you not, that one might feel safe and secure in a school setting. In a small rural school, where everybody knows everybody. Where your fellow faculty step in when needed, and mind their own beeswax when not. Where administration, faculty, staff, and students pull together for the good of the cause, one for all and all for one. Where lunch in the cafeteria is a pleasant interlude from hard-core learning. A place to relax. To let your hair down. Enjoy the company of your peers. Safely. While ingesting wholesome food to fuel your brain for the afternoon ahead.

I once thought as much.

Today we sat at our faculty lunch table in the cafeteria, discussing the relative merits of our incoming freshmen. A feisty group. Yet not unpleasant. And then it happened.

I felt an impact on my upper left arm. The place right beside the fatty part that jiggles when I wave along the parade route, unless I take my teaching buddy Mabel's advice, and give the royal wave. I looked to determine the severity of my injury, only to see a thin red liquid coursing down my arm. Thin rivulets. With shrapnel. The sleeve of my shirt was stained. The teacher next to me gasped. She tried to stem the flow of fluid. Dabbed at it with a napkin. "I am SO sorry!"

The rest of the table laughed. Hee hawed, actually. Belly laughed. Brayed like donkeys. Made light of my misfortune. Students at the table next to us, my last-year's charges, snickered openly.

I had been tomatoed. My second-cousin-about-to-be-removed had chomped down on a grape tomato, and sprayed the living daylights out of it. Right onto my arm. Good thing for her. The principal was on her other side. Does one not chew with one's mouth closed any more? Is the force of a single grape tomato so powerful that it explodes out of one's tight-lipped mouth?

I looked to the left. To the right. I know how Carrie felt on prom night. Yet there were no doors for me to slam telekinetically. So I used my words.

"Is it too much to ask that I be able to dress in regular clothes at work? I had no idea this morning that my wardrobe should have been that of a person with front-row tickets to a Gallagher performance." I turned to my former relative. "Your jaws have the power of a hefty wooden mallet."

I completed my day in soiled clothing. Including parking lot duty. I'm expecting an email about professional dress. Will somebody please play the world's smallest violin for me?

The Road Barrier

No. It was not a concrete structure keeping me from my travels. It was a person. And believe me, he was no Mel Gibson. No road warrior. So I have chosen to name him The Road Barrier.

We met this morning at 7:05 a.m. The time when the sun is creeping over the horizon. Brightly. On a blind uphill curve, with a long semi loaded with rock bearing down on me from the oncoming lane, The Road Barrier and I became acquainted. He scuffed along in the middle (yes, I said THE MIDDLE) of my traffic lane, even though a five-foot swath of only partially-littered wet grass was available for his transportation needs. He did not deign to turn. To meet my eye over his shoulder. On he plodded, giving no quarter, insouciantly swinging his see-through grocery sack, two apples swaying like fake testicles on the tow-hitch of a rebel-flag-decaled pickup truck. Apparently, he had missed the memo: roads are not for walking.

The Road Barrier gave not a smidgen. Not a skosh. He owned that piece of pavement, by cracky, and was yielding for no vehicle. I slammed on my anti-lock brakes. Came to a complete stop. In the road. On a blind uphill curve. To keep from killing him. He would have been safer with Gordie and Vern, traipsing over the railroad trestle high above the Castle River, on a quest to discover the body of Ray Brower out on Back Harlow Road.

I call for the state of Missouri to initiate a walkers license, requiring all walkers to pass a written test, and a perambulation test, every two years. Our roads will be safer. Our revenue will increase.

Let's make it happen.

It's Who You Know

I have been off my 44 oz. Diet Cokes since school started.

The 44ozDC was not abandoned due to an intervention. Nor because of cost, taste, tooth discoloration, The Jitters, a bleeding ulcer, kidney stones, sleeplessness, or a healthier lifestyle. No, the mitigating factor in the cessation of my sweet, unsweetened libation is TIME. Lack of time. Time is not on my side.

I prefer to sip my magical elixir in my dark basement lair. From it, I draw inspiration. In short, ice-cold sips. A 44ozDC purchased at 11:00 a.m. may not be completely consumed until 6:00 p.m. Extra ice is added, of course, in irregular increments. Now, I cannot relax with my liquid gold in the leisurely manner I so desire. It must sit on the kitchen counter, ignored like a new kid in the school cafeteria, until my meal preparations are complete. Then I might have from 6:00 until 8:00 to sip. The spell is broken if I haul a 44ozDC out to the TV area. It's not the same.

Don't you worry none about Val and her hydration. On Saturdays and Sundays, my beverage and I are besties again. We pick up like we never left off.

Saturday, I pulled up at the 80-cent refill store. Hopped out of my Tahoe like a kid at the carnival. I strode purposefully through the door. Jauntily waved my refill cup toward the front counter. No need to make eye contact with them. I'm a regular. I'm almost surprised that they don't all holler, "Norm!" each time I walk in. When the line is backed up with a lottery scratcher, the cashiers will sometimes hold out their hand for my correct change, and put it on the counter until they can ring it up. Meanwhile, my liquid buddy and I hit the road.

On this day, I had my three quarters and one nickel clenched in my fist, along with four dollar bills. It was PowerBall day for me. When I stepped up to the counter, I saw a familiar face. The Woody to my Norm. A former student from my school. He was never in my classes, but his three brothers were. And I saw him in the hall every day. During this long, hot summer, he taunted me with questions of when school was starting. Which is something you should never ask a teacher. Seriously. Make a Note To Self.  He asked how school was going. So I said, "Please give me four dollars on PowerBall." We shared a laugh. I handed over my four bills and change. He pushed the change away. Shook his head.

I have connections.

The Thin-Skinned Squatter

This morning, Hick discovered that an intruder has set up housekeeping in his BARn.

For a couple of weeks, Hick has been hearing things toppling upstairs in his Coke room/BAR area. Knick-knacky items. He figured there must be mice running around up there. He's had them before, you know. Most notably the time he found them inside the pockets of his coveralls. Hairless, pink, blind, baby mice. Plunged his hand right into their midst. To hear Hick's older boys tell it, "Dad jumped up and down, ripped off those coveralls, and screamed like a little girl." So the idea that there might be furry brown fully-grown field mice in his tricked-out loft did not cause him to panic.

To further fuel his suspicions, he had found that his gimcracks were, indeed, on the floor. And this morning, he found something else. Under his workbench, downstairs.

 In case you can't tell from The Pony's phone pic, that's a five-foot snakeskin. The thing about a five-foot snakeskin is that the snake is bigger than five feet now. Hick thinks the original owner of that skin was a black snake. Or black rat snake, but nobody around here uses its proper name. Hick reports that in spite of the toppled tchotchkes, he has actually seen only a couple of mice in the barn. So he figures the skin-shedder was laying in wait along the mouse path.

Just so you don't think Hick is pulling a fast one, here's another photo, showing both ends of the skin.

This picture also includes The Pony's finger. Or perhaps an ominous entity. Or a magical red dot. Glass half full or half empty, I suppose. That backdrop is our old heating/cooling unit that was just replaced. Because why throw away something that doesn't work, when you could store it in the BARn to use as a backdrop for a five-foot snakeskin?

Yes, the BARn proper is not up to the standards of the BARn loft. I suppose that's a working chainsaw and a nonworking chainsaw. A chair I've never seen before, which points to something being thrown away at Hick's work. The measuring implement is a survey pole, though nobody here has ever worked as a surveyor. Under a gray tarp in the back is a 1970s Ford pickup without a bed. I'm expecting those American Pickers to drop in any day now.

There are no plans to evict our reptilian squatter. Hick was a bit apprehensive about the skin being light-colored from a black snake, until I told him that was normal. He declared that if it came from a copperhead, we were gonna catch it, by cracky, and become rich for owning the world's largest copperhead. Yes. He has delusions of grandeur. Surely he must know that we will become rich after my as-yet unwritten book hits #1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

While I wait for that to happen, I'm going to see if we can't find a cousin of Mr. Five-Foot-Plus Black Snake to take up residence in our garage.

Putting the Freeloaders Back to Work

Hick is displeases with our felines. Or, as he calls, them, "YOUR cats."

It's not like these cats are my sole pleasure in life. Like I sought them out for companionship. Lay around stroking their soft, soft fur while they caress me with their sandpapery tongues. No. I accepted one for each son from a teacher with two litters to disperse, and rescued three from the woods by the mailbox. They were duly wormed and vaccinated, and each received that very special operation to prevent proliferation. Now they roam about the grounds, drape themselves bonelessly over the porch furniture, and totally ignore us. Run from us, even. Except for Genius's cat, also named Genius, an orange tabby.

During the cooler months, our herd of cats takes up residence in the rafters of the garage. Hick has put down plywood across the trusses. Not for the cats' pleasure. For storing the yard Santa, the fake Christmas tree, tubs of who-knows-what, and pet carriers. When not tightropewalking along the two-by-fours, dangling tails off the plywood platforms, or sharpening their claws on a piece of carpet remnant, these thankless freeloaders pace back and forth across the hood of my black Tahoe. At least that's what I deduce from the footprints. When I pull into the garage, my heart is often stopped by the PLUNK of a cat onto the roof. I'm a stepping-stone, you see. From plywood to beam to open garage door to Tahoe roof to Tahoe hood to floor. It's a choreographed critter ballet.

The cats don't drop onto Hick's roof. His Pacifica has a lower profile. Last week, Hick took exception to our less-than-loving felines. "I'm gonna kill me a couple of cats." Knowing Hick, I did not take this literally. First, he would have to catch them. Then get them away from the house to fill them with lead. Then bury the carcasses. So I figured what he was really trying to say was, "I am totally pissed to the max at these darn cats!"

When further questioned about the issue, Hick revealed the catalyst for his comment. "I pulled into the garage and sat in my car for a minute. I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I waited. There is was again. A mouse running up and down the wall! Those lazy cats need to start killing the mice! What's the use of a cat if it won't kill mice?"

My cats used to kill mice. Really. They would play with it a while before one of them ate it. And they always left the liver on the porch. Maybe if Hick would stop feeding them so much, then griping about how much it costs to feed them, they would snack on mice again.

I haven't noticed the goats killing any mice.