Confessions of a Caffeine Addict Part I: Where Will I Get My Fix?

The pinging crash of glass breaking set up a series of events which changed my life. I washed my popcorn bowl after I finished the entire gallon of my world famous popcorn. It’s world famous in my mind, anyway. Actually, I make an excellent batch of popcorn which would be world famous, if I marketed it, as my friends who have tried it assure me. Putting the oversized bowl on the counter to dry, along with all of the dishes that Squeezey had already completed, shifted a few dishes which sent a cutting board sliding off the far side of the counter. As usual my trying to help around the house resulted in disaster, and this time I did not try to mess up in order to get out of work. My breath abated and my whole body tensed as I waited in anticipation for the cutting board to hit the floor; I remember thinking ‘I hope a cat isn’t sitting there innocently like Chicken Little. “The sky is falling! Aaaaaaaahhhhh!”’ Luckily, a cat was not sitting under the cutting board hurtling toward the floor. The whole room reverberated with the crashing sounds, as the large chunk of plastic bounced off the cold tile floor. In my mind, I had already relegated myself to rewashing the black speckled white piece of plastic, because plastic does not break. Before the sounds of the cutting board had a chance to stop bouncing off the walls, I heard a higher pitched crashing on the side of the counter I occupied. I looked down at the floor by my flip-flop attired feet and amidst a lot of broken glass lay the handle to the coffee carafe. The tragedy of the situation permeated my entire corpus like a chill of hypothermia.

My caffeinated life flashed before my eyes. I reminisced about all of the wonderful mornings I listened to the gurgling of the coffee maker before enjoying the soothing warmth of a steaming cup of java. My shattered mind recalled all of the mornings I groggily dragged myself down to the coffee maker stepping over cats sometimes not so successfully, the eye-opening experience of my first few sips, of all the times I wrote in my journal of the need for a cup of motivation in the morning or in the afternoon after a rough day, and all the times I wrote of the refreshingly bitter flavor and how wonderful it made me feel. As I looked at the dead coffee carafe handle, the mode of transporting the pot full of the bittersweet beverage from the burner to my cup, the grieving process struck me immediately and without mercy.

First, disbelief slapped me groggy. ‘Perhaps the handle to the coffee carafe did not lie on the ground after all,’ I tried to delude myself. The glass around this “unidentifiable” object lay in a thousand indistinguishable pieces. The shards of glass scattered around the plastic piece and throughout the kitchen could belong to some other culinary object with a plastic handle that just happened to resemble the coffee pot handle. ‘What other glass container had a plastic handle?’ I frantically searched my memory bank for any kitchen utensils fitting this description. None! NONE! None came to mind. I could not bring any to mind. Frustration followed the disbelief as blood flooded my face.

My disbelief dissolved into anger, the second step of the grieving process. Who could be responsible for this heinous crime, this insidious act of involuntary coffee carafe slaughter? Not me! I only put my popcorn bowl on a pile of dishes. As if at some nightmarish culinary crime scene, I recalled with the alacrity of a seasoned detective an incident that occurred about a month prior. Squeezey had placed the freshly washed carafe on its top to dry which due to the raised handle did not sit squarely. As she turned to attend to another section of the kitchen, the carafe started to roll on its side toward the edge of the counter. Fear gripped me and took away my voice. Only grunts and other incomprehensible sounds of alarm came out of my mouth, “Ah, ugh, ooohh, ayee, uh, uh, UHHHHGG!!!” Squeezey turned toward me to determine what demon had taken up residence in my soul as the pot perilously approached the edge of the counter for the plunge to its doom, but she looked in the direction of my mute pointing finger and caught the glass container averting a potential caffeine disaster. I thought she had learned not to do such a silly thing again, but obviously she had not. I searched for a scapegoat, anyone or anything to blame but myself. As I stared at the recognizable and broken coffee pot, Squeezey asked from the living room, “What was that?” “The coffee pot!” I yelled. That’s all I said. The blood boiled in my brain, and my anger seethed throughout my body. I silently cursed the woman who had moved to the scene of the crime and patiently cleaned up the mess. This incident was her fault my caffinated mind convinced me. “How am I going to get my coffee in the morning?” I asked, to mad, and paralysed from the lingering disbelief and uncertainty, to help in the clean up effort. “You will have to get it at work,” was Squeezey’s level-headed response. I wanted the energizing beverage at home in the morning while I journal. I didn’t want to journal at work. “Will we be able to get a new carafe?” I asked. “I don’t know. The coffee maker is over five years old,” said Squeezey, apparently unaware of my inner anger and dread.

My anger quickly turned to self pity, the third step of the process. I honestly did not know how I would cope until we replaced the carafe or bought a new coffee maker. I went to bed a lost and dejected man uncertain of the future and not knowing if I would be able to survive without my coffee in the morning. I still did not take any blame for the incident, and I had not realized that my reaction to the broken carafe had resembled a heroine addict unsure of his next fix. The only thing that kept me going as I got into bed: the knowledge that in the morning I could still get my caffeine fix and subsequent buzz at work as Squeezey had so astutely suggested. Although this would entail drinking the heavenly beverage in front of my students, and they could not drink anything but water. I always felt somewhat hypocritical drinking coffee in front of the kids, but they would just have to cope. I needed my fix. With apprehension, I decided to forgive Squeezey for her involvement in the carafe breaking incident; however, the decision I made the following morning was more shocking than my life shattering when the carafe broke. To be continued...

Mistakes That Have Made Me

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Great quote! But I realize that if this quote is true, then I have had a very honorable life, because I’ve made a lot of mistakes. As a matter of fact, my life is so full of mistakes that I could be voted as having lived the most honorable and useful life in the history of humanity. Out of all of my memories, mistakes seem more memorable than the little victories of life. How useful is that? Not very, unless you do that very human, albeit very painful, behavior: learn from them. I’m not talking aversion theory, here; I’m talking cognitive learning. Learning from our mistakes, and an opposable thumb, set us apart from the animals. That’s why I’m convinced that my ex-wife is a Sasquatch (a shaved one).

I’ve had many mistakes of note. Like the time in fifth grade that I tried to sneak gum past my parents. My obviously changed demeanor gave me away as soon as my parents saw me. Walking in the front door, they glanced up from watching T.V., a favorite past time of theirs, and saw my hunched-over frame trying to hide what appeared to be a large quadruped in the pocket of my jacket. Later I pondered, how could they not have noticed? They interrogated me until I confessed to the crime. A friend of mine had given me the prized possession, and I did not think they would let me keep it. They confined me to my room for a week, not because I had gum, but because I tried to hide it from them. Even in the fifth grade, I felt the punishment did not fit the crime. Lesson learned: look more natural when trying to hide things from my parents. Death Row would have been preferable to the hell of my bedroom. I probably should have used the time to clean it, but I had better things to do with my time.

The week after I was released from my sentence, which was not commuted due to good behavior, I was able to successfully sneak a baby grand piano past them into my bedroom. A weeks worth of contemplation allows one to plan and practice concealing large objects and smuggling them past unsuspecting parents with the alacrity of a cat burgler. My Mother discovered it one day while she cleaned my room. When she asked me where I had gotten such a fine piano, I told her that I had bought it with my allowance. Since I had never received an allowance, I was busted again. My parents again grounded me for a week. Lesson learned: petition for an allowance. Actually, I’ve made so many mistakes in my life it’s hard to choose which ones to write about.

Now Shaw argues that it’s better to make mistakes rather than do nothing. Even when I do nothing, I make mistakes. For instance, seven years in elementary school, four years in middle school, five years in high school, and in all those years of school, I did not one jot of homework, which any rational human being would consider doing nothing, and which was in and of itself a mistake. Now I know it; then I was clueless. Then, I thought I was smart enough to just attend classes, which I mainly did to look at all the pretty girls although they were too smart to have anything to do with my dumb-jock-butt, listen to the teacher, take an occasional note, pass an occasional note, and I could pass the tests and thus pass the class. Not the most intelligent brainstorm I ever came up with, but it kept me wrestling. What did I do with all of my time? I watched a lot of mind-numbing television. As I look back, all those years of watching television did nothing for me but kill time. I could have gotten a college degree with all of the hours watching T.V. Now time is dead, and I wonder how much smarter I would have been if I had done even half of my homework. Probably smart enough to figure out how smart I would have been.

Another mistake in the same vein as the last, I decided that I didn’t want to write a five page paper for my stodgy, old, gray-haired, stiff, one-foot-in-the-grave English teacher, that’s probably what my students think of me, and the paper was the only thing standing between me and high school graduation! So I walked up to my parents (I was hiding a pickup truck in my pocket just to see if I could get away with it), and I announced that I would not be graduating from high school. I saw no problem with this. I did not want to write the paper. I felt it would just be “buying” my diploma. Obviously not doing my homework affected me and my ability to think critically in ways that I hadn’t contemplated, yet. Luckily, in one of my mother’s flashes of lucidity, she calmly yelled, “Over my dead body you’re not going to graduate. We’re going to go see that English teacher to see if you can still write that paper, and you’re gonna write it!” Her head spun around as she said this. She actually pinched my ear all the way to school and only released it after I wrote the paper. It was the fastest paper I ever wrote, but I graduated. My ear never healed. Thanks Ma.

In reality, I’ve learned much from my mistakes. Mainly that I can still sneak large items past my parents. I learned that if I wanted to do well in college, I’d need to do my homework. I became a stodgy, old, gray-haired, stiff, one-foot-in-the-grave English teacher. Funny how life’s drama plays out. I still haven’t figured out if this is a tragedy or a comedy. I think it’s a tragicomedy. These few mistakes only represent a molecule on the tip of the iceberg of the mistakes of my life. I’m not sure if I proved Mr. Shaw’s axiom, but his quote sure sounds good. That’s where I want to be with my writing. I want to be able to write things that have no real meaning but sound good and pithy just like Bernard Shaw. I have so much to write and I have no time. Not making the time could be the biggest mistake of all. I guess I could write about the good things I’ve done which ultimately lead to a mistake. That is my life in every aspect. Things start out good, but they turned into mistakes very quickly. The only thing I’ve done that is not a mistake is getting together with Squeezey, and I’m not just saying that because she reads this blog (although it won’t hurt!), I truly believe that. She keeps me grounded (not the way my parents did). I also realize that if I had not made all of those mistakes, I would not be the person that I am today. Perhaps, by following my dreams and staying grounded, I’ll stop making mistakes. Will that be a good thing? We shall see. If history is any indication, I will not stop making mistakes any time real soon. Would I change any aspect of my life? Not a chance, except maybe that incident with the romaine lettuce. Other than that, I’m good. Peace out. Bye!

Please State the Reason for Your Leave Request

One of these days, when I get my certification all in order, I will be needing to take a day off: just a personal health day for which the district need not know the reason. Even though deep in everyone’s id lies a certain part that would really like to tell our employers the real reason we take these mental health days for ourselves, I can only dream and imagine telling my district the real reason for not coming to work. I could write it right on the leave request, although I would probably need to use a separate sheet of paper. I usually do not develop a bad attitude until later in the year. By the second day, I’m ready to tell off the Pope. Here are some of the reasons I would really like to put on the leave request.
1) I need a personal day because of all of the freakin’ papers I have to grade. I have a mountain of papers waiting for my evaluation, and who has time to do it? If I’m going to teach these knuckleheads you keep throwing at me who just take up space in my class and who expect me to be a constant source of entertainment, I have to assign them a ton of homework. As a reward for imparting my hard-earned knowledge on these unreceptive cretins, you don’t provide me with enough time to grade their assignments, so I have to take the work home in order to provide timely feedback for these students who don’t even appreciate my effort and quite frankly neither does the administration. Honestly, it would be nice if you gave us more time to grade papers, so my family would not have to suffer, and I would not have to neglect them at night when I should be paying attention to them. Therefore, I’m taking time off because of all the grading that I have to do. Mind you, I will not be grading during my day off. I will simply be relaxing and spending time with my family. Also, I’ll probably be consuming a lot of beer, so I won’t be constantly thinking of the overwhelming task that caused me to take the day off in the first place. Tell the substitute to have a great day, from me.
That would feel good. I think I’ll wait until I have tenure to put that down as a reason. How ’bout this one:
2) I’ll be taking a personal day due to the fact that I have to work for an administrator who possesses no backbone. You would not believe how exhausting it is to work for such a jiggly, wiggly invertebrate. I personally cannot take it anymore, and I am in need of rest. In reality, I need to take a day off for every time she does not back me up. However, alas, it happens so often; I’m afraid you would not see me for the next ten years. She not backing me up causes an inordinate amount of mental anguish. After I came back, I’d probably only have to teach about half the school year. So I will be taking a personal day to recover from the spineless wench who calls herself my principal, and I will be allowing my butt hole to heal from all of the times she has bent me over and shoved a telephone pole up there in order to not have to stand up to a parent or the Superintendent or a Board member. Perhaps I’ll be back when I no longer have to walk bow legged. Thank you in advance for your understanding.
Again tenure! Or how ’bout this excuse:
3) I will be taking a personal day because I’m getting mighty tired of dealing with thirty-three out of every thirty-five students in all five of my classes who don’t want to be in school and who don’t give a flying rat’s keister what I say or think. If I wanted to be ignored I’d get back with my ex-wife. These students push the boundaries of my sanity every single freakin’ day. Perhaps, if you, as a district, did not shove all those students into my classes until there is standing room only, I could get to know my students. Thus, I wouldn’t have this problem, and they might learn something in my classroom. I’d be able to teach more, because I wouldn’t be spending ninety freakin’ percent of my time disciplining all of the students who show me in various ways that they don’t care what I say or think. Take for instance, the kids who make spit wad projectile apparatuses out of ball-point pens and spit their paper wads at other students, at me, at my clock, and at the principal’s sorry behind as she is checking up on my class and my work performance. Check that, I never discipline the ones who spit wads at her, but I do discipline the other offenders. Or, how about the student who talked over me in order to ask his girlfriend on the other side of the room if she will give him a blow job after class, and, of course. I could stop this type of behavior if my principal had a backbone. Now, I‘m sure that you can sympathize with my plight. So I need to take the day off for the constant grief these students give me. I will be recuperating mentally, and this time I think Margaritas, about ten pitchers worth, ought to do the trick. I’ll be back the next day mentally ready to handle these little darlings; albeit, I may need to go to the nurse for some ibupropen.
This one I think the district could handle as long as they have spent at least one day in the classroom. And the last excuse I’d love to use:
4) I shall be taking a personal day, because as a teacher, I got into the field because I wanted to make a difference in a child’s life. I wanted to teach the children under my tutelage to appreciate good literature, and I wanted to teach them to love writing. How idyllic of me. I did not get into teaching to teach to the test. I made a solemn vow to myself that I never would. Of course, I did not plan on working for the spineless witch of the west, either. So now, in order to keep my job, I need to teach to the test everyday. I don’t like it, and the kids hate it. Probably the most frustrating thing is everyone knows that we should not be teaching to the test. The parents don’t want us teaching to the test, but all the requests that they make dictate us teaching to the test. The administration does not want us teaching to the test, but they keep on buying more and more tests. The obvious message is not only teach to the test but teach to all of the tests. You see, if my students don’t pass these tests, you have let me know that I will lose my job or heaven forefend I will be deemed “Highly Unqualified.” So I will be taking time off to forget about the freakin’ tests if I can. I’m not sure that I will be able to, but my good buddy Jack Daniels sure is gonna try to help me forget about those damn tests. You know, those damn tests are just like an old girlfriend who may not have been the nicest looking chick in the world, but she was great in bed: you just can’t drink her off your mind. I will be leaving a lesson plan for the substitute. He or she will be giving my students a test. I certainly would not want them to forget how to take a test in my absence. If you should need me for anything that day, add it to my list.
The main reason I can’t write these excuses on the leave request is because I used “freakin’” in every one of them. However, I think the day off would be so much more satisfying, if I could put these reasons in the space marked, “Please state the reason for your leave request…” Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all tell our boss’ the real reason we will be taking the day off?

Hyperbole and the High-five

30 August 2005, Tuesday, 5:41 am
Okay, this is pretty surreal, pretty futuristic; some might even say a tad ridiculous. I’m sitting at my desk with sounds of nature playing on my computer CD player, while the screen representation of the music swishes around changing colors. There is meaning to this. I just can’t think of it at 5:41 am. So I’m a member of the five o’clock club. I think Squeezey thinks I’m crazy for getting up so early to write, although she did comment on my other blog. She agrees with me that my “How Not to Fix a Car” essay would be better left out of a submission to a syndicate, a representative submission to see if a syndicate will pick me up. I don’t see why a syndicate would not pick me up.
There are many lighthearted writers, but very few that can successfully make people laugh, even, or especially, when they try. They just don’t have the skill to pull it off. I know that I don’t often write funny things in my early morning free write. So, why can’t most humor writers get a laugh? They try too hard. Something that I’m working on alleviating in my writing. They think that inappropriate things are funny, which may be funny when done physically, but not when done in writing. Example: a young man can get drunk and rant and rave to his friends about the news coverage of hurricanes (notice they do not call these wrathful entities himmicanes). This young man, when in the company of his equally young, naïve, and drunk companions can curse, denigrate news anchors and other media personnel, and yell and scream all to the drunken delight of his fellow revelers. However, this same event when recorded verbally exactly as performed the intoxicated night prior does not translate well onto his blog. No matter how true or clever it is. This young man does not lack the skills to think humorously and creatively; he lacks the skills to effectively communicate his clever, humorous ideas to his adoring public via his Web log. Perhaps he will improve.
Another inane and useless technique at the hands of an amateur is hyperbole. Dave Barry used this technique, or should I say over-used it, and it very rarely worked. It is not funny to simply use exaggeration, because humor has to contain truth, much truth, to be believable and thus humorous. It isn’t funny to simply say that your wife has twenty cans of tuna in the cabinet, neither is it funny to suddenly and without explanation blurt out that she has one billion cans of tuna in the pantry. The exaggeration serves no purpose and is not funny to anyone except people with one billion cans of tuna in their house: a very minute percentage of your readers, even smaller when one has no readers. One lady wrote that the dirty brat (I’m paraphrasing here) behind her in the check out line at the grocery store was eating a candy bar which was understandably besmirching his face, but he wasn’t just eating a candy bar. This lady decided to make it a two-pound candy bar. I think she made the story to contain a two-pound candy bar for hyperbole and humorous effect. But since two-pound candy bars only exist as novelty/holiday items and since she did not have a scale and since she did not further explain the two pound candy bar comment, this exaggeration did not have the desired effect on this reader.
I think both these people went to the Dave Barry school of humor writing, where only hyperbole and understatement are taught. So, my two million minute time limit is up. Peace out. Bye!
31 August 2005, Wednesday, 5:50 am
All righty, then. I don’t quite feel awake yet. But I feel more with it than last night. I have my Grumpy mug (a gratuitous plug for the seven dwarves) filled to the big, bulbous nose with pure, black coffee, which actually has extra flavor today, because I forgot to rinse out the glass carafe before filling it with water, so the water that I poured into the repository--(is that the correct word?), or well, or receptacle (What do you call that place that you put the water?)-- was a light brownish color from the coffee residue from last night. So aren’t I the lucky one?
I think fuck you that I’ll have Tourette’s shit syndrome today, so when fuck tits my principal is explaining mother fuck Breaking asshole Ranks II Tootsie Roll fart I will just blurt out bitch fuck fart shit and just claim T.S. Yeah! Dick wad, that’s what I’ll crack whore do.
Today I read in my BRI Bathroom Reader about a high-five simulator, an arm attached to the wall for those incorrigible high-fivers who just can’t get enough of that ecstatic high-five feeling. (The BRI author called it a “Used-less Invention.”) This is the stupidest idea since the Pet Rock. However, for the record: the Pet Rock was pure genius compared to the high-five simulator. One would have to be alone and have done something so clever that one would feel compelled to high-five someone. But not clever enough to high-five oneself, because one could high-five oneself, because one has two hands with which to do it. Wait a second, that was so clever that I feel compelled to high-five myself…Whoa! That felt great. The inventor of this insidious device probably goes around high-fiving his dog or cat cruelly pulling his little paw up into the air and slapping it with his palm. This guy cannot be right in the brain. He had at least one synapse misfire on this invention, or he was high on crack.
I’ve been writing so long this morning that I feel like high-fiving someone… I high-fived Grumpy on my coffee mug. God, did that feel great. Grumpy liked it too. I think he will have a better day because of it, and he owes it all to the inventor of the high-five simulator. I wonder if Dubya has one of these. He could simulate a high-five every time he invades a country in the name of “freedom,” which is a euphemism for “oil,” or every time he does something dumb. No wait his simulator might wear out. It is not designed to take such abuse. Oh, that was so clever. Hold on I’m going to go high-five my cat… I high-fived Saki, my cat, and she bit my pinkie finger. I think she enjoyed it though. Boy, I’m about high-fived out. A good friend of mine high-fives people when he has said something clever. I don’t remember anything clever that he said, but the high-fives were memorable, because I so very rarely high-five anyone. A high-five is a useless invention in and of itself.
What’s wrong with a low five? “Give me five!” it is just as satisfying and it takes less energy. Is it too low brow, too old-fashioned, too out of style? I think the low five should be reinstated as the preferred way to greet people and initiate personal contact. We should start a campaign to bring back the low five. The only place that I know that it still holds some popularity is in the old practical joke, “give me five (a low one)…up high…on the side…down low…too slow.” Metaphorically speaking, this little prank practiced by still immature pranksters, and me, is an insult to the low five . It is saying: if you are still a practitioner of the low five you are out of date, behind the times, an old fogie low fiver. I think it was a ploy developed by the inventor of the high-five simulator to covertly discredit a low five and to promote his product. It obviously did not work. Yeah! High-five! Peace out. Bye!

Pickin' Panty Wads Out of My Crack on the First Day of School

First Day of School?
This blog was actually written on Thursday, August 4, 2005. I haven’t been posting many blogs lately, because I have been getting ready for school by surfing the web looking for former students on porn sites. I’ve only found a couple. Just kidding, I haven’t found any.
The first day of school: catching up with old friends, passing notes, throwing paper wads back and forth, talking when listening should be going on. And next week the students start back to school.
Teachers are by far the rudest group when it comes to teachers meetings. It takes them a long time to quiet down, they talk when other people are talking, they pass notes, and they make unnecessary noises like armpit fart sounds. When it comes to group behavior, educators receive an “F” for fart noises. You would think that teachers would be the most respectful and most attentive group, seeing as how they deal with students, out of whom teachers expect better behavior. Empathy with the speaker sort of thing. Actually a group of chimpanzees are more respectful and attentive, probably smarter, also. The teachers of my district took almost a full minute to quiet down after the superintendent picked up the microphone. How rude! I realize that most of the teachers, those with education majors, in the public school system scored lower on the SAT’s than agriculture majors, “undecided,” and those majoring in nose picking. Ag science, I can understand: the average IQ of a herd of cattle is far higher than for a herd of teachers. But it is embarrassing that people who can’t make up their minds and don’t know how to pick their noses score higher than most teachers on the SAT.
They are frankly too dunderheaded to realize that there is a guy standing up with a microphone maybe I should listen. These are the same teachers who can be heard yelling at the top of their lungs screaming at the children to “shut up!” and “put that desk down!” and “put your clothes back on!” They probably figure, “well, if he really wants my attention, he’ll just have to scream like I do.”
This image of average teacher, below average student, is why I don’t get any respect. I could make more money and get more respect as a garbage collector. You don’t see every sector of society from parents to politicians saying that trash men and women aren’t doing their jobs, they need new methods so that they do their jobs better, and we need to make it harder to be a garbage man or woman. These things don’t happen. You don’t see the president initiating the “No Garbage Left Behind Act”
Panty Wad Report
Teachers tend to get their panties in a wad about a lot of things especially at the beginning of a school year. One teacher, Mr. Diaz Freeman, gets his panties in a wad because his beloved AP class gets changed around and his prospective students who did a truck load of work over the summer get screwed in various positions by the counselor who is in charge of scheduling. Another teacher, Mr. Peter Kouth, gets his panties in a wad, because he is forced to team teach with a rather distasteful teacher who can be heard screaming at the top of her lungs, “stop stabbing that young man!” And his biggest complaint is that he had no input in the matter. Both panty wad situations, but, ha! Not my problem. My panties got in a wad because they are trying to force 160 students up my ass and there is not room up there to teach this many students effectively. They aren’t even taking off my panties before they are shoving and that is why my panties are wadding up. Of course Mr. Freeman and Mr. Kouth are laughing at my panty wad situation as much as I’m laughing at theirs. Everybody’s panties wad up about something. The teachers whose panties are not in a wad have either been teaching for twenty plus years, don’t really care, or don’t have the brain capacity or mental ability to pick the wad out of their butt crack, anyway. They are just happy they are getting a pay check for the privilege of working with children instead of dancing around a pole or standing on a street corner with a sign that says “will work for peanuts, and people who are not peanuts.”
Missing Stuff
Over the summer, many teachers have sent emails regarding stuff missing from their classrooms. One is missing a chair that she named “Charlie.” The naming of inanimate objects happens with teachers and schizophrenics. Another teacher is missing a radio named "Bob." Another a boom box named "Jezibel." Another a large cushioned arm chairthat he calls "Darling." We all know that these items are not just missing; they instantaneously combusted or were stolen, and if the latter proves true, it sounds like one of the summer school teachers or janitors were trying to furnish their apartment. Not being able to resist, I sent an email that read: “Haven’t found any of these items, but while we are on the subject (this is how the other emails started out) I am missing a candy-apple red Lamborghini that I was storing in my classroom. If any one has seen it being driven around town, I’d appreciate a tip. It has a bumper sticker that reads, ‘My other car is a Yugo.’ Ciao.” my principal wrote back, “Email is for business use only. Please do not parody our intentions.” I’ll admit that it was probably a slightly distasteful email considering that my principal’s entire office was cleaned out…or excuse me…found missing. There is an oxymoron in the last sentence, and it isn’t my principal

Sleepin' In Without a Clue

During the summer, without anything more pressing than a bloated bladder full of last night’s beer, I love to sleep in. This irritates and annoys my Squeezey more than telemarketers on Ritalin. Hey that sounds like a ride at Disneyland. Welcome to Telemarketers on Ritalin, “We will call you after all. We will call you after all. We will call you after all, even if you don’t want us to.” My sleeping in bugs her especially because she has to go to work, and I don’t. Do I hear the waambulance? Now, understand that during the school year, I get out of bed hours before Squeezey, and it does not particularly bother me, not even enough to, say, stick her hand in luke warm water or anything like that, but she does make the bed look pretty enticing. So when I loll in the arms of Morpheus (not of Matrix fame) on a cool summer morning, after Squeezey finally decides that the alarm clock snooze stetting will neither go away nor physically drag her out of bed, and she must place her feet on the floor and come to a vertical position, I start the happy sleep noises. Oh, I moan and stretch and sputter and moan again. One would think that nothing but a morning bed would make me happier. I especially love stretching over into her space. This is the matinal equivalent of military occupation of unoccupied enemy territory when the person you are taking it from did not want to vacate it in the first place. My purring and cooing in bed only make her so jealous that she makes lame attempts at waking me up, like lightly tickling my feet. “Ummmm…” I gurgle, as if she just intensified the pleasure of my vast, empty, warm, freshly-vacated cocoon. I know she is still insanely jealous, even though her complaints and I-don’t-want-to-go-to-work protestations have ceased since the beginning of the summer, because last year she asked me not to put my socks on while sitting on the bed, because it shakes and jars the bed so, and this summer after she stopped complaining, she started putting her socks on while she sits on the bed. You can’t fool a fool’s fool. (That sounds more profound than it actually is.) However, my morning moans of morphean delight are working. Alas, I only have one more morning to work my demon magic, before I have to go to work. Tomorrow, I’ll make bed sound real good.
Tonight, as I read the paper, Nicole asked me if I wanted to play a game with her and her mother. I asked her, “What game?” She scampered off to ask her mother. “Clue,” was her return reply. Obviously, Squeezey does not think that I have one. “No thanks, sweetie,” said I. Off went the child, only to return a little while later with, “What game do you want to play?’ I said, “The game I’m playing now is How Many Silly Questions I Can Make a Little Girl Ask. Nicole glared at me with a look that would have struck fear into Quentin Tarantino. “Okay, my guess is Colonel Mustard in the library with a whip and chains,” I said. “There are no whips and chains!” said she. “Set up the game, I’ll be right up there, and I’ll show you whips and chains, little missy.” “What…ever!” she chirped (with a little head nod.)
Five minutes into the game nobody had the revolver. No smoking gun, first clue! Shortly thereafter no one could account for the whereabouts of Miss Scarlet. Perhaps, she’s in the basement with the butler with a video camera. Through deductive reasoning that would have impressed Scotland Yard, the FBI, and the AFL-CIO, E, I, E, I, O, and after cheating, I narrowed the scene of our little homicide down to either the dinning room or the billiard room or Miss Scarlet’s room. I decided to take a stab at it (pun intended!) If I were correct, I could brag about my Holmsian logic for weeks to come, refer to Squeezey as my curvy little Watson, and repeatedly say, “It’s elementary my curvy little Watson,” (Holmes said this at least once. I think he was on cocaine at the time), even in bed. If I were wrong, I could go back to reading the New York Times. My accusation proved to be absolutely incorrect. I still looked under the board for Miss Scarlet, but I relegated myself to searching for a clue in the newspaper. I did not find one. Someday maybe, I will find one. Next time, I want to play Life.

Eight Days To Go

I just found Nicole and her mother, Squeezey, sitting in Nicole’s closet playing a game of electronic Battleship. How sweet! Mother and daughter locked in mortal combat at sea. Each strategically, yet aimlessly, trying to sink the other’s fleet. This is a good bonding game for them, because in several years, they will be playing verbal and mental battleship as Nicole eases into her teen years.
At least they aren’t watching TV.
Eight days until school starts. I teach high school English at Buena Suerte High School (BSHS). The bliss of summer no teaching, no grades, no assignments is quickly waning. Why do we have to go back? The march of new generations never stops. I’d like it to stop for just one year. “Mr. McMyrth. I’m afraid I have some bad news: there are no tenth graders this year. You don‘t need to teach English. See you next year.” They would hear me whopping it up in Michigan. August always brings this dread, like a knee to the groin. My contract begins Thursday, though no students will grace the halls of my ivory tower, I dread it just the same. However, when I get back, I love it; and that is why I go back.
My classroom remains messed up, due to the fact that I haven’t looked back since I sprinted from it on the last day of school last year. Maybe I will go in tomorrow, but I will work on the credits that I need for re-certification. Even if I straighten up the room, within five days it will be a total disaster because of that demonical and destructive force known as the teacher. My desk is the poster-child for organized disorganization all year long. When will I figure out the lesson plan for the first day of school next Monday? Either Friday or Sunday sounds good to me.
The countdown begins!