I Get By With A Little Help From My Pony

Today The Pony and I went to school to serve half of my time in the pokey working on my classroom before the start of the next school year. It was my understanding that I would only have one day to make up, but apparently the snow day status changed while I was incapacitated. The way I understood it was that we were to attend an all-day inservice for one of our three mandated days, then work a second day in our rooms, then come in sometime before the next school year on a day of our choosing.

I had a medical excuse for the inservice, which also went through the end of that week. Silly me. I thought a doctor's note would take care of that pesky day, use up a sick day, and then have one left to serve when I was capacitated again. Au contraire. I HAVE TWO DAYS TO MAKE UP! Good thing I called yesterday and asked the gal who runs my building. Yes, Mabel, we all know who that is. Not the one who WANTS to run the building, but the one who actually does. AND, she told me that one poor soul has to make up THREE days! That's preposterous!

So...The Pony and I wended our way down my dark hall, passing amongst the innards of the teacher workroom, which was locked up tighter than my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel's cabinet full of scissors, rulers, and giant yellow glue sticks, with a sign on its door that said, "Keep Out. Wet Wax." To make sure that all were in compliance with this signage, a sentry sat guard, fiddling with his cell phone. I asked if he was watching wax dry, and he said that was one of the perks of his job. But seriously...he came in to see if he could help me with anything in my room. AND he's one who came in to chat with me when I hobbled in for an hour in June to get my grades completed. He's a good guy.

I know you're not going to believe this, but The Pony and I had to hook up all of my electronic accouterments. It's true. The room itself was pristine. All my furniture was just where it was supposed to be. Nothing was missing. BUT my electronic control center was in a shambles. It was in a heap. A pile. A wiry ball of snakes with assorted plugs on the ends. Sweet Gummi Mary! You know how Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is with technology.

The Wax Watcher must have heard my screams. He came right in. Told me they had put everything back just like my diagram, but I had left off one measurement of the number of tiles from the door to start my desk rows. Oh, silly Wax Watcher! I am not the OCD beast that Cus makes me out to be. That was a minor blip on my radar. Though I DID notice, and did not fault the custodial crew. No, it was the thought of being there to work for two days, and having nothing to work with.

Wax Watcher said that they are not allowed to hook things up, because they really don't know what they are doing. Which is funny, because he has helped me other years, and even whittled the plastic coating off some wire to get my sound to work again. But I understand. There must have been a decree somewhere down the line about not putting one's finger in other one's pies.

I know you're really not going to believe this, but The Pony and I set to sorting that rat's nest of alternating-current umbilical cords. We first attacked the amplifier/dvd/vcr trio tower. That's because The Pony wanted to watch movies while I worked. Oh, dear. That took an adjustable screwdriver and some trial and error, but we got picture and sound.

Next I wrestled with the phone. It took The Pony three tries to figure out how it balanced on a detachable base. It had two wires coming out of the back. I discovered that one needed to be hooked into the wall. Clever me, to have been alive before cell phones. The Pony discovered that the other wire needed to plug into the back of my laptop power dock. Oh, how I laughed. "What does a phone have to do with my laptop, you silly Pony?" Turns out he was right. Which I didn't know until four phone calls later.

The printer was a beast. It had NO wires snaking from its blocky body. We had to try the ends of many different cords until we made one fit. We had power. But nothing hooking it to the laptop. SO...again, we tried various cords until we found one that fit both the printer and the dock. VOILA! I could print.

The laptop was docked. The mouse and number pad hooked up. The main a-lot-of-pins screw-in connector was hooked up to the dock. It looked like all systems were go. I fired that baby up.

And I had the network but no internet. About 10 calls to The Techster, our new guy, with several remote accesses, and my internet AND my gradebook issues were resolved. I salute The Techster. A big thumbs up. I might even excuse him for coughing on me last May at the faculty meeting.

Yes. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom connected her own electronic control center without the help of the #1 son. For the FIRST TIME EVER.

Excuse me now. My arm has grown tired of patting myself on the back.