A most curious thing has happened today. I am not quite sure how to go about the telling of this story. It defies all logic in Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's world. For those who would roll their eyes at my "unreasonable" state of pique, such as a certain The Pony Hillbilly, I must thumb my nose. Shout, "I told you so!" Inquire, "Who's crazy now?" I feel like that old hypochondriac who had the following message engraved on his tombstone: "I TOLD you I was sick!"
Yes. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has been vindicated. Not that it brings her any joy, of course.
Perhaps I have mentioned that my unofficial non-reserved longtime-understood seat at the teacher lunch table has come up TAKEN recently. More that once. More than twice. And that it has only happened since we returned to Newmentia after that glorious spate of 21 snow days. In fact, it happened pretty much during the month of April. Lately, the usurper has taken to stealing other lunch table seats from other lunch table eaters. I thought, perhaps, someone had mentioned that I did not cotton to the theft of my seat.
At the beginning of the year, I had scoffed at one luncher's theory that THE ENTITY (yes, we're not even justifying that revolving butt with a fake name today) was stealing chairs out of spite. On purpose. To push buttons. Today, I declare that luncher to be a criminal profiler worthy of a promotion.
This being First Monday, the Newmentia staff convened in the library after school for our last regularly-scheduled faculty meeting of the year. I grabbed two pieces of printer paper, a blue Pilot Precise V5 Roller Ball Pen, and headed down the hall to be enlightened. As I entered her sanctuary, the book-keeper asked me to save her a seat. My best old ex-teaching buddy Mabel used to make sure we all had seats at our little table. Even if she could not be there, she designated a saver. So we had our table of four, and an occasional guest. With Mabel out of the picture, we are a table of three, plus the book-keeper. She's fine, as long as she doesn't bring that keg-sized bubba cup to obscure our view.
So it was with a feeling of belonging, a sense of community, that I rounded the check-out counter and headed for my table. I knew that most likely, Sweet Alabama Beige (she who has feral cats and serves them ice water all summer) would have my chair waiting. And then I got a full view of my table, and panicked.
THE ENTITY WAS IN MY SEAT!
"Are you kidding me?" I asked my discombobulated brain and galloping heart. THE ENTITY has never once sat at our table. THE ENTITY sits at a table 90 degrees or at one 180 degrees from our table. Yes. I sit with the Mathies. I am an honorary Mathie. The book-keeper is not, but says (on the down-low) that she has security clearance with a government agency. So she must be pretty smart. Or a really, really good liar. THE ENTITY, however, is not a Mathie, and as not such, must glom onto an elective table. We have our pecking order, you know.
Can you believe it? THE ENTITY chose MY seat out of the 40 chairs in that room. Even though Sweet Alabama Beige had saved it with a broken mechanical pencil she found on the floor. THE ENTITY has a lot of gumption. I hate gumption.
I am almost afraid to go to work tomorrow, lest I find THE ENTITY sitting behind my desk.
2 comments:
If you go into your classroom tomorrow morning, and she's sitting at your desk, head the other way, go out the door, get into your car, and head home...because apparently you have a day off.
Sioux,
Heh, heh. You fooled me. For a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me to head on down to the cafeteria and sit in my lunch-table chair until lunch time.
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