This Act Ain't Goin' On The Road

If there's ONE thing I've learned over my many years of teaching, it's that sometimes, a kid's story shows promise, then meanders aimlessly and peters out without a proper punch line or reveal.

Because I'm tired of enduring such torture all by my lonesome, I'm going to share one with you now.

Yesterday, a girl pulled a reindeer-head-on-a-stick out of her purse and waved it at me. Not a real reindeer head, silly! That would not be considered normal. Everybody knows that reindeer are not indigenous to Missouri. She pulled out a chocolate reindeer head. Just to show me, and tell me that her mother bought it for her. Because she knows she can't eat it in my class. But she was proud of it.

Sucker Head has a bit of a fractious relationship with one of her afternoon teachers. They are like oil and water. He never mentions her, but she speaks about him on a regular basis. She bears him no ill will. She merely wants him to lighten up. She tells ME that all the time. I am not offended by it. It gives me a chance to reinforce my will upon the class. To explain that I CAN'T chill out. If I did, they would overtake me, and no learning would occur. We agree to disagree.

Today, Sucker Head stopped at my doorway and asked if she could bring her afternoon soda into my room. "No. You'll have to save that for Mr. Man's class. He's wearing a Christmas tie today. Maybe you should compliment him on it."

"Oh! He wore a Christmas tie yesterday. It was all of Santa's reindeer. I took my reindeer-head sucker out and started eating it in class. He walked by and said, 'I can't find Rudolph.' So I said...

Now, here one might think that the story is going somewhere. That perhaps Mr. Man was joking with her. Saying he couldn't find Rudolph, because she was eating a reindeer-head sucker. That would be a clever little joke between the two of them. But no. Here's how it went:

"...'Duh! He's the one with the red nose!' I can't believe Mr. Man didn't even know what Rudolph looked like."

So much promise. So little reward.