Short and Not So Sweet

Here's something for you folks with little time to waste: I used to teach third grade. I think I hated it from the first moment my hands wrapped themselves around a piece of chalk. I had a seating chart that I completed the first day of school and had to use it a whole year long because after every weekend or spring break, I could not for the life of me remember the names of my pupils.

Well, here comes the funny part. One morning I was taking turns teaching reading groups, but all of a sudden, the kid next to me pointed at Neil S. The chubby always-smiling eight-year-old no longer had a broad grin stretched from ear to ear. And finally I figured out why. Below his desk was a puddle of what looked like water. Ok? Given that I was a new teacher with limited experience, I wrapped my head around this problem and came up with a creative solution. Neil must be sitting under a leak in the ceiling. Of course he was. Four years of college and a 4.0 grade point convinced me of this.

Meanwhile the kids were laughing, and I was trying to get the janitor on the phone. When the custodian finally came, he started laughing too, but this time it was at me. The gist of his message: "Hey Lady, this kid wet his pants and you're too stupid to connect the dots."

It was only then that I saw the writing on the wall.It was embarrassing both for Neil and for me. Suffice it to say I never made that mistake again. I made worse ones. To be continued....Humor for All

Comments

I Never Had a Nickname

They say it's the little things in life that destroy marriages: he doesn't lower the toilet seat; she never listens to his work anecdotes; he eats with his fingers; she never can find her car keys. The same adage applies to self image or self concept. It's the little things that can build or destroy egos. Although my parents had baby names for me that they used at times--for example, "cookie" and "pussycat," these never morphed into appropriate adult nick names. For instance, no one in my house ever called me Jan. That would have been the most common and appropriate nickname for "Janice," but no one ever came up with it. Was it a severe lack of creativity? I don't think so. In hindsight it said more about parenting style than it did about their opinion of me. My parents ran a rather strict household. We laughed but it was either behind the parents' backs or at a time when my father decreed a joke or anecdote was funny. My point is tha...

Bitching is My Life

Yeah, This is another one of my bitch/gripe essays. How can I keep up the challenging pace? It’s not easy but I work at it. I try to find something negative in everything I see and do. And it works for me. Just yesterday in AZ everyone woke up to a blue sky and warm temps, but I quickly dispensed with that happy development. All I had to do was walk out on our fake grass and I was hit with one big negative after the other. Our fake grass seems to have been infected with real grass and the two don’t complement each other. So I bitched about that over breakfast and pretty soon I had my husband outside pulling out the real stuff. Boy was he miserable! But I scored again! Then in the afternoon I went to the supermarket, and sure enough, I found something else to gripe about. It’s an upscale store. I mean it’s got a Starbucks, a salad bar, about a million bottles of French and domestic wine…..and a homeless guy hanging around at one of the exits. That’s disgusting. Maybe most people do...

Should Old Acquaintances Be Forgot?

In the Scottish dialect of the old New Year's Eve song Auld Lang Syne, the composer posits the question: Should old acquaintances be forgot? The short answer to this is "Sometimes." One example will suffice. A "friend" of mine emailed me the other day and although she is not a writer, her words spoke plenty. Her first rebuke was that I don't answer her calls, and this is a claim I cannot deny. But the accusation was caustic, mean-spirited--it was as if I had neglected to visit her in the hospital, that's how grievous my omission was. She insinuated so much by those few harsh words. Why did she call? Purportedly to inform me of her physical status and that of her dog Murph. Being the obedient child I still am, I did call her afterwards, and we spoke. Mostly S spoke of her new illness--osteoarthritis of the spine--and her dog's possible diagnosis of valley fever. I listened and listened and listened until I just couldn't take it any more. The...

The Dysfunctional Family

Search This Blog