The Gal Without a Classroom

The man without a country has nothing on Val Thevictorian. Val is the teacher without a classroom. For two days, anyway. Have you heard? It’s standardized testing season! So my tested kids go with me to the computer lab while my untested kids have a substitute. Yes! A substitute! Isn’t that grand? No farming them out to be minded in a gym or cafeteria or library. No sirree, Bob! No shenaniganistic opportunities for them! They have the chance to exercise their brains with an assignment. All hail the flow of knowledge through formative noggins.

Because my little testees (heh, heh, I said testees) finished before the allotted time elapsed, I was like Richard Gere as Zach Mayo in An Officer and a Gentleman. I had nowhere else to go. Though I was thankful I was not laying on my back on a concrete slab with a drill sergeant spraying hose water on my face.

I couldn’t go to my classroom because an already-hired sub was comfortably ensconced. I couldn’t go to the teacher workroom because later lunch shifts use it as a private dining room. I wormed my way into a business classroom for the 25 minutes they were gone to lunch. Then I popped over to the library.

So peaceful, a library. I set out all my educational accoutrements on a wobbly plastic-covered-with-faux-wood-grain-laminate table. Time to catch up on a little work until the afternoon testing session. Or not.

The nirvana of my booky sanctuary burst alive with the unannounced invasion of a teeming horde of freshmen on the march like army ants. Except they did not devour everything in their wake, but attempted to socialize it to death. Like a gaggle of gamboling golden retriever pups, they romped across the library to the center table where I had set up shop. “Mrs. Thevictorian! Mrs. Thevictorian! Aren’t you happy to see us?”

“Ecstatic. But I’m afraid I must leave now.” I gathered the tools of my trade. The freshman crests fell at 9.8 meters per second per second.

“Don’t you like us? Don’t you miss us?” They had just sat down at my table. All 1,387 of them. Apparently my table was as adjustable as Santa’s sack.

“Indeed. But your teacher has brought you here to work. And I am a distraction. Until we meet again…” Funny how quickly they recovered as I made my exit. Kids are so resilient.

Lucky for me, the business class took me back. All I had to do was sit at a computer station in the dark with my back to the projector screen and listen to Chris Hanson catch a financial predator. He was from Nigeria, I believe. Much work was accomplished before time for the next testing session.

Tomorrow I’ll do it all over again.

I Make Intra-House Calls

Well, over 24 hours have passed, and the Thevictorian family has not succumbed to a food-borne illness. We must have cast-iron stomachs. I think Hick bought a set at the auction, and installed them while we were not paying attention to him. Or else he has hung them on various walls around the outside of the house, and they are warding off any pathogens that try to invade.

My internet service has been acting up. If the phrase "acting up" can substitute for "doing nothing at all." It runs along just fine, then stops. Maybe for a minute. Maybe for 180 minutes. Give or take. I am like the witch doctor of technology healers. I try everything that's ever worked for me. Close the browser. Open a new browser. Hold my breath. Restart my desktop. Restart my laptop. Jiggle the wires of my connect card dealybobber. Plug into a different USB port. Move my little plastic antenna thingy from the clip-on laptop lid area to the windowsill. Do a system restore on desktop and laptop. Spin around in a circle three times. Turn my head and cough.

The Pony says I am an idiot for doing those things. Not in so many words. He's a polite young man who knows who drives him wherever he needs to go. He kind of gets an attitude in his voice. "That's not going to do anything."

"Then how do you explain that last time, when it connected RIGHT AFTER I DID THE SYSTEM RESTORE?"

"That was a coincidence. It was just time for the signal to come back. What you did had nothing to do with it. It would have connected if you just sat there."

"Okay, Smartypants. What about when I took that little wire out of the side of the connect card, and PUT IT IN THE HOLE ON THE OTHER SIDE?"

"Coincidence."

He went back to the basement, leaving me to lose my hearing sitting in the front window fiddling about with my laptop, Shiba, while Hick watched some UFO show about President Reagan. My auditory health was almost saved, because Hick was sawing logs in the La-Z-Boy when I ascended from my dark basement lair, and I turned the volume down to normal. Then he woke up and thought he'd gone deaf, and jacked the sound again.

I moved the antenna to a different window pane. I tried a different USB port. I disconnected the plug for one minute. I moved the antenna back to the last location where my internet worked. I clicked on system settings. Closed system settings because it was all Greek to me.

AND MY INTERNET CONNECTED!

I told Hick to tread lightly if he got out of his chair. I resisted the urge to fist-pump, and started down the steps. I could not resist needling The Pony. "Uh huh! I got it working. Who's the idiot NOW?"

Can you believe The Pony did not even ask me how I fixed it? And I was all ready with my answer, too.

"I have no idea."

The Monday of Living Dangerously

Every now and then, Val throws caution to the wind. Becomes a risk taker of the intermediate order. Attempts a feat others might consider foolhardy. Today was one of those times.

I had packed my lunch as usual. Turkey on whole wheat English muffin, with a side of a snack-size yellow bag of Lays Potato Chips. I plopped it on a paper plate and headed for the cafeteria, where I snagged my rightful seat with my back to the serving line, my vista the entire expanse of tables hosting freshmen in a feeding frenzy. It was Sloppy Joe day. We don't have it often.

Two colleagues were already seated. One eating a salad, the other eating a sammich of some kind. I would call it a sandwich, but it looked more like a sammich. You could tell the guy made it himself. I noted that my left-hand companion had passed me as I was entering. Then I saw the across-the-table gal meander down the hall instead of coming to our table. In fact, my right-hand man had no sooner cut into line ahead of the students when Salad-Eater called to one of the kids, "Hey! Tell Mr. Right-Hand Man that there's mostaccioli in the workroom! We made too much."

Ahem. Was I not worthy? She had watched me unwrap my sandwich and open my chip bag and pour them on the plate. Mr. Right-Hand Man came out with a tray bearing two Sloppy Joes. Two milks. Two cups of fruit salad. Two tray sections of broccoli. "I'll probably finish this, and go get some." He sat down and spread out his lunch like he was Emilio Estevez in The Breakfast Club. Salad-Eater must have suddenly noticed my near-invisible self sitting at Mr. Right-Hand Man's left hand. "Oh, I forgot to tell you. There's mostaccioli in the workroom."

Of course I would not get up to get any at this juncture. Not that I was too proud, mind you. But a good 7-10 minutes of the 23-minute lunch period had already passed. Not enough time to dish up a plate and chow down. Here came Left-Hand Companion and Cross-Table, both bearing steaming plates of mostaccioli. They are not as punctual as I after lunch. They do not have the high-maintenance group that needs above-adequate supervision. The can linger longer.

So...flash forward to the golden ten minutes after final bell. That twilight where you can't leave the building, but technically your day is over. An announcement blared from the ceiling. "Attention, staff. There is mostaccioli in the workroom if you want to take some home for supper." Well. Alrighty then. Remember Supermarket Sweep? Those cart-wielding maniacs had nothing on Val. I ready to be first off the starting line. All I needed was a suitable container. Okay. A container. One that didn't leak.

I ripped open my cabinets and figuratively kicked myself for taking home those four Chinese soup containers I had kept in the cabinet for a month, full of reward sugarless gum for participants in one student's science project. But wait! There was one soup container left. It had been there all along. For years. Full of Hot Wheels cars for a potential/kinetic energy activity. We had just used them a couple weeks ago. Students handling those cars every hour, rolling them down ramps and across the floor. And there they were, sitting in a soup container. I dumped the Hot Wheels out on the shelf. Gave the soup container a quick swipe with a white school-issue paper towel. Val was in business. The mostaccioli business! I took off for the workroom in the manner of Peter, Aunt Polly's cat, after Tom dosed him with Pain Killer.

One staffer was already there, gazing at the large rectangular warming dish. For lack of a container, mostaccioli was lost. But wait. Staffer had kitchen connections, and scurried off to look for mostaccioli transporters. I bellied up to the counter and began wielding the ladel. I pounded that soup container to eliminate air spaces. I packed it full. Salad-Eater wandered in. "Do you need more containers?"

"No, thanks. I have this one. Oh, is this safe? Will we get food poisoning? Has it been sitting out all afternoon?"

"Yes, but it's been on. It's been kept hot. It should be okay."

I guess she knows about food handling. It's kind of her job. Maybe I forgot to mention that this mostaccioli was made by students. Last Friday. And served at the Extraordinary Dance on Saturday night. Then stored until today. And put out again and heated. All afternoon. Until I placed it in an old Chinese soup container that had minutes before held Hot Wheels cars that had been manhandled by freshmen crawling around on the floor.

Every now and then, Val throws caution to the wind.

And Now, the Queen for a Day is Going to Bake a DiGiorno

Hey! I'm going to let you in on a little-known secret: I'm a mom! I know how shocking that must be. Maybe I should have warned you to sit down first, rather than spring it on you, after all these years of keeping my children secret, never mentioning them here on the ol' blog.

Genius sent me a wonderful card from college. So what if he had to sell a little plasma to get the money? He even mailed it in plenty of time, so I got it on Thursday. It was a card showing the loving influence of moms behind great people in history. And on the last page was a little mirror. Perhaps it's more of a statement by Genius that he has lofty goals and plans to become a great person in history. I particularly liked the vignette of Einstein, with his mother telling him to do something about his hair before he went out. The Pony preferred the one where Sacajawea's mom scoffed, "You mean you found a man willing to ask for directions?"

This morning, Hick started off my pampering by only huffing twice and giving me the stink-eye once when I asked to get in the bathroom while he was standing at the sink in his tighty-whities filling his old-man weekly medicine-dispensing gadget. He then allowed me to do the Save A Lot and Walmart shopping, and two loads of laundry while he sharpened his lawnmower blade for three hours.

The good times kept on a-rollin'. While on the way back from shopping, The Pony revealed that Hick was going to grill the evening meal. Huh. First I heard of it. Because if I had known, I would most likely have picked up some meat to grill while in Save A Lot or even Walmart. Since I did not plan to make a third store-stop, we agreed on frozen pizza for supper. The next best thing to not cooking. Hick even came out to carry in the groceries.

The Pony gave me a musical card with a 1950s housewife on the front, wearing an apron, pulling a roast beast of some kind from the oven, which played the tune, "Yummy Yummy Yummy I've Got Love in My Tummy." The inside said, "You really know how to make dead things taste good." He's such a little charmer. Hick's card was roughly the size of a sheet of 4' x 8' plywood. That's because he loves me so much. It had a little bow, and some sequins and rhinestones, and was very pink. That's because it obviously appealed to Hick's feminine side, and because he knows what a giggly girly-girl I am. Still, it brought a tear to my eye due to the message, and not at all related to the price. The stepsons kicked in with celebratory texts, so all accounts have been settled.

Next, we went out on the porch to see my present. I hit the jackpot this year. I got two yellow rosebushes to replace the one that died, and a concrete birdbath. Never mind that the concrete birdbath had the bottom of the bathing part coated with dirt. I asked if it was a used birdbath, and The Pony jumped to Hick's defense. "It cost TWELVE DOLLARS!" Well, then. It was a smart purchase. I hope the chickens don't poop up the water for the regular birds who may desire to bathe.

Oh, and on the way to town to mow my mom's yard, Hick and The Pony planned to stop and get me a $69 pear tree to plant in the front yard. Just around the time all my teeth fall out, I'm going to have some pears to gum! And it will blossom all prettily between now and then.

This was definitely better than the Box of Snowcaps/Three-Dollar Change Purse Mother's Day.

Hick done good.

More Mishaps by My Mom

With Mother's Day approaching us in mere hours...I would be remiss in not updating folks on what my mom has been up to lately. I'm a bit concerned. Two recent episodes are out of character for the hot-natured slaw aficionado.

Last week, Mom told me she was headed to town to pick up a few things. "I really don't have much to get. The main thing is slaw. I ran out." WHAT? Mom ran out of slaw? That's like somebody letting Carl T. Griffith's 1847 Sourdough Starter die off. Mom always has slaw. And spare slaw as a backup. The weather has not even kept Mom housebound at the bottom of her driveway. I can't believe she ran out of slaw!

Also last week, on Wednesday, I believe, Mom spoke softly on our morning phone call. "Are you sitting down? I don't want you to faint and hit your head." I guess that was her way of saying she didn't want me to knock myself unconscious while I was unconscious. "Are you ready? I just wanted to tell you that I turned my air conditioner on last night." WHAT? Mom turned on her air conditioner in April? That's tantamount to celebrating Christmas four months early. Mom never turns her air conditioner on until August. It's like a ritual for her. She dabs at the damp hair tendrils sticking to her neck, with paper towels (torn in half, of course), while lounging about in shorts and t-shirts, barefoot, professing that her house is cool, really, and she sees no need to waste money on air conditioning. Yes, our temperatures here in Backroads it the very upper 80s last week. Still, I'm shocked.

This morning she had a story to tell me. The Pony spent the night with her, so she went to the store around 7:00 to get him some donuts for breakfast. While she was in line, the cashier asked if she was with the man in front of her. The cashier was already ringing up his groceries. "Oh, NO!" said Mom. At the same time, the guy in front of her turned to look at her, and also exclaimed, "Oh, NO!"

Being Mom, she could not leave well enough alone. She always has to talk just a bit too much. She used to complain that an old lady in my childhood neighborhood would never say "Bye" during their phone calls, but would simply hang up when Mom was in mid-sentence. I'm not sure one can inherit such a trait. I'm sure nobody who reads here would even consider Val to be long-winded. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the old colleague I used to coach basketball with used a similar tactic to get off the phone with me. Can you imagine? And after HE called ME. It just seems unlikely that every time we were discussing practice, somebody would come to his door. "Oops! I've gotta go. Somebody's ringing the doorbell." Oh, I could actually hear the doorbell. But then he let slip one time, on a long bus ride, that he had gotten off the phone with the track coach's wife by reaching out on the porch to ring his own doorbell. The nerve of that guy! He could at least have had one or both of his twin daughters do that deed.

But getting back to Mom in line with a box of glazed donuts...she told the cashier. "Well, maybe I'm with him, if he's paying for my donuts." AND THE GUY DID!

"Here. Let me pay for those. Mother's Day is tomorrow. I'd like to pay. Really. Put that on my bill."

Of course Mom was mortified. She may count her change when I pay her for something she's picked up for me at the store, she might starve a tiny puppy rather than toss it a crust of bread, and she might only donate five dollars to the Extraordinary Dance, but she is really a generous lady who likes to pay her own way and not be beholden to anybody. She regretted not shutting her mouth. She had no idea the guy would offer to pay.

"It conly got me," Mom said. That's Backroads-speak for "I was surprised." We have our own lingo here in the hinterlands.

The Pony brought home the remainder of his donuts. Written on the box was $2.40. I'm not going to tell The Pony that a strange man bought his breakfast.

I might need to keep an eye on Mom. Next thing you know, she might be throwing away her gray sweatpants with the hole in the knee.

Mrs. Thevictorian, Unlicensed Medical Diagnosis Woman

I'm not sure why I don't simply chuck this teaching and quasi-writing gig, and hang out my shingle: Mrs. Thevictorian, Medical Diagnoses Without a Degree.

For the second day in a row, a student consulted me concerning a medical issue. Oh, it wasn't about a six-day scab flaunted in order to scam a Scooby Doo band-aid. It wasn't about a headache that needed immediate pill-popperage. It wasn't even about a mysterious hivey splotch on the thigh, in spite of not going outside, or letting one's dog out. A mystery that was suddenly solved as Itchy walked away, and I tried to swat a mysterious gnat on my desk. A gnat that jumped like the celebrated Calaverous County frog, but with a hard-shelled exterior.

This inquisitive patient had a knot on the side of her neck, just behind where a Frankenstein bolt might be located. A knot that was mushy, like a ball of Silly Putty, but no good for copying the comics.

"Do your know what this is? My teacher told me it's my thyroid."

"Oh. I don't think so. Your thyroid is in the front of your neck. See? Where my scar is? That's where they took out my thyroid."

"Huh. Then what is my knot?"

"Maybe it's a lymph node. Do you have an infection? Are you running a fever?"

"Well, my sinuses have been giving me trouble because of the pollen. And the side of my face hurts, and my jaw."

"You might want to have that checked out by a doctor if it doesn't go away in a few days."

Kind of disturbing that her teacher in the CNA program thinks the thyroid lies on the side of the neck, just below and behind the earlobe.

I was momentarily reminded of Angelina Jolie as Lisa in Girl, Interrupted. The scene (replete with multiple F-words) where she threatens to jab a pen into her aorta. A pen which she has pointed at her neck. And Whoopi Goldberg as Val tells her that her aorta is in her chest. So Angelina Jolie as Lisa says, "Good to know."

People need to get more in touch with their bodies. The thyroid is our neighbor near the Adam's Apple. The one who hugs the trachea.

Never Underestimate the Allure of a Little Thigh

The Pony and I were batching it again this evening, if by "batching" it, you buy into the premise that we are both unmarried men of marriageable age. Some of you, perhaps, misread that key word, substituting the third vowel for the first, and wondered aloud, "THIS EVENING? Val is ALWAYS bitc--OH! She said BATCHING!"

Hick was not yet home from his business trip. He had stopped to take Genius out to dinner. If, by "dinner," you buy into the premise that Steak n Shake is a place people go for the evening meal.

I dropped into the gas station chicken store for a naughty mid-week 44 oz. Diet Coke. As I got out of T-Hoe, I noticed the parking space next to me was littered with bones. Not human bones, of course. What do you think we are around here, barbarians? We dispose of our murder victims the proper way, inside of old septic tanks, with their head detached. Truth really is stranger than fiction.

In line to pay for my magical elixir, I turned to the chicken counter. My regular guy popped around the warmer. "Hello there! What can I get you?"

"Well, I wasn't going to have chicken tonight. But when I pulled in, I noticed that your parking lot was littered with bones. That must be some extra special chicken. People can't wait to eat it."

"Huh. The parking lot was clear an hour ago when I took my smoke break."

"It looked like wing bones."

"Oh! Two guys were just in here, and all they wanted was wings." He went about putting my order into a sack. Talked me into some fat fries that I had not planned on, either. And don't let this out, because it's how rumors get started, but during our interaction, he gave me a little thigh. Shh…I warned you.

Yes. He literally gave me a little thigh. I found it when I got home. He does that quite often, slips me a little something special in the bag. Mostly it happens when the stuff in the warmer is getting old. Or the pieces are especially small. He's a good guy. If I ever strike it rich on a scratch-off ticket, he will be remembered.

I'm sure that's what he's counting on.