I'm Blaming The Charlatans Optical Delusions Emporium and Professional Prevaricators Shoppe If I Require Antivenom

You know how one little variation in routine can send you spiraling into a deep well of discombobulation? It happened to me this morning.

The Pony needed to print out the final draft of his research paper. I piled my stuff on my desk, and went about the morning checklist out of order. Once I got rid of The Pony and plopped down at my control center, I thought everything was back to normal. I gathered my tools for the day: mechanical pencil, red clicky pen, black Bic pen, red Pilot V5 Rolling Ball, old red gradebook, seating charts, glasses, and projector remote.

Ding dang dong it! My little faded teal Sasquatch notebook with the three oval trees on the cover was missing! It's not for my lessons. I had a flash of inspiration, and 40 minutes until first bell. I was having a writing moment.

Some might suspect that my notebook was not really missing, but that I could not see it because I lack proper bifocals. Some would be correct. There it was, like a coiled rattlesnake waiting to strike, on top of my Holt McDougal Biology TE. Not that we have coiled rettlesnakes in the building. Okay. We do. But not coiled. And scorpions. Their presence, we're told, is due to the facility being constructed around them. Huh. Somebody needs to figure out how they've survived captivity for 13 years. Or if there's a mad poisonous species provider lurking in our midst. An ersatz Johnny Appleseed, perhaps. Jimmy Deadlyvenom, spreading nerve-toxins throughout Hillmomba. I really do need to get my glasses, so I can see the little predators.

It's a safety issue now.