I love my mother. Really. I do. She is so thoughtful. Always helping me with my children. Bolstering my spirits. Believing in me. Laughing at my jokes. Giving me little gifts like individual packs of peanuts. And apples.
Every morning at 6:00, I call Mom to chat for a few minutes. If I don't call by 6:05, she calls me. We usually discuss our plans for the day, or the latest happenings on Big Brother, or what the boys have been up to lately. This morning, Mom asked me to deliver some of her not-world-famous Chex Mix to a fellow teacher who attends Mom's church. Her plan was to meet me on the school parking lot and transfer the goods. Oh, and she had a couple of apples she wanted to give me.
That was what Mom said. "Oh, my friend went to Eckert's, and brought me some apples. I'd like to bring you two of them if that's okay." Well. Who turns down two perfectly good apples picked by an old lady at Eckert's? Not this gal. So I told Mom she could bring me the apples.
The Pony and I pulled onto the blacktop parking lot and backed into our isolated space two from the end. Mom was already waiting. She hustled over with the Chex Mix in a paper sack. That stuff is like crack for teachers. It wouldn't do for somebody to find out that one guy was getting some, and nobody else was being Chexed. The plan was for The Pony to drop it off to that teacher on his way to 1st hour. Oh, and Mom was carrying the apples. SIX APPLES. Sealed in a large ZipLoc bag.
Oh, the dilemma. I could not leave them in T-Hoe through the day. The sun beating in on the black leather seats was sure to turn that vehicle into an apple tomb. They would be heads for dolls by the time I came out, thanks to the ol' greenhouse effect. I have not forgotten the succulent garden tomatoes that Mom sent home after church with the #1 son, who left them sealed hermetically in their ZipLoc shroud inside his little red truck all afternoon at 107 degrees. I'm going to make a little recipe card to set on the counter of my proposed handbasket factory. A recipe explaining How to Parboil Tomatoes in a Ford Ranger.
So...I took the see-through bag of six apples and headed into the building. I felt like a decoy to take the heat off The Pony and his secret stash of Chex Mix.
3 comments:
Other things that are "crack" for teachers: Krispy Kremes, a half-empty package of cheap, off-brand cookies (they can even be stale and soft, and the vultures will still circle and swarm), chips (again, stale) and salsa, any left-over appetizers from a colleague's party last night/three nights ago/last weekend.
I hope The Pony successfully completed his mission. If he had been caught in MY building, his bones would be been stripped of all flesh like a calf in a piranha pool. It would have been ugly...
Just line them up on your desk and make people think that your students brought their fsvorite teacher apples. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,! I am going to rot in hell for this, aren't I? Oh well, at least I have a hand basket to help me get there.
Sioux,
Surely you saw my post about the expired chips at the teacher lunch table! I don't remember which blog it was on. But the point is, I shared my Save A Lot brand chips. Everybody raved about their deliciousness. Then I looked at the date on the bag, and it was a month past the Use By date.
Allow me to add to your list: seven-day-old pulled pork from conference night, which had been left in and out of the refrigerator numerous times for numerous hours. But it was FREE, by cracky!
Eek! My little Pony! He is of most use to me with his flesh left upon his bones.
***********
knancy,
I cannot play such mind games with my students. They would be discombobulated for days, trying to imagine WHO could possibly find me a favorite.
More likely, some avid hunter would ask me to balance an apple upon my smarts-filled noggin, and commence target practice with a compound bow.
Ride tight in your handbasket, my dear.
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