The Human Turducken

Sweet Gummi Mary! Can the world stop conspiring against Mrs. Hillbilly Mom for 3.9 seconds?

First cat out of the bag this morning, I had to move 25 desks and 25 chairs. Okay, technically, it was 25 desks and 25 chairs minus 7 desks and 7 chairs, because my first row was lined up properly. Our dear Cus decided, I suppose, that my furniture would better suit Cus's purposes in an alternate seating chart. I've a good mind to beg a key to the custodial closet, and rearrange the supplies in Cus's custody. How'd ya like THEM apples, Cus? Turn about is fair play. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Payback is a witch.

After moving furniture for free, without even a tossed bottle of grape juice for my trouble, I sped into the teacher workroom to make a few copies of my very special secret alternate test. That's because a few of my charges have earned it, two versions of an examination not being enough to discourage roving eyeballs. What to my beady eyes should appear but my lunch colleague at the better Kyocera. I waited. Nobody is EVER there at 7:25 a.m. In fact, I've had to turn on the copiers any other time I'm the early bird. Of course Kyocera was out of staples. So I had to connect my pages the old-fashioned way, with my own personal maroon Swingline, which has been choking lately, what with the new box of staples I procured, printed with the same staple code as the old box, but obviously of a different quality.

Lucky for me, a student in a later class rushed through her assignment, and asked if she could help me grade papers. Ahem. That is out-of-bounds. Off limits. Verboten. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has never in her life allowed one student to grade another's paper. Not even in the "everybody switch papers" manner. Grading is for the teacher. Not apprentices who have no stake in the outcome, unless it is a secret vendetta. So I pushed the lesser babka, paper-stapling. Problem solved.

Lunch led to a rousing brimstone-spitting condemnation of a recent news item, just proving my suspicion that sheeple are an actual species. I remained mum, so as not to show what some might term stupidity. Or to give them a trumped-up reason to ship me off to the old conspiracy theorists home.

Just before lunch, I had time to check my school email, and saw that I had a vital piece of electronic equipment awaiting installation. Yes. By all means. Come do it now, never mind the room full of kids taking a test. Oh, and to the substitute lesson-disturber manning the office phones, I must say, you are quite sly in letting my phone ring and ring whilst I do my between-classes duty in the hallway. In fact, you could have seen me standing there, the reason for not answering, had you only turned your head 90 degrees to see me on the surveillance camera.

My new electronics were hooked up. At the price of my laptop display being altered from full screen to a square box. Yeah. Like I know how to get it back. I even asked the kids. That's who you call for electronics problems, you know. I started out with, "Who knows a lot about computers?" Modestly, they ducked their heads. So I tried again. "Okay. Who knows more about computers than Mrs. Hillbilly Mom? Don't everybody raise their hands at once!" Three stalwart techies approached my desk. Oh, they had various solutions. None of which worked. So I had to call the book lady. She fixed me right up. But now I have to switch the resolution every time I want to use my electronic device, or all on-screen people have wide fat faces.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. The equivalent of Charlie Brown swallowed by Al Bundy swallowed by Rodney Dangerfield. A human turducken.