A Classroom Ain't Safe In A School Full Of Seniors

The Reaping.

The Reaping is an annual event at Newmentia. One teacher is chosen each year to sacrifice his/her classroom for the seniors to use as a primpatorium before the graduation ceremony. To mill around willy-nilly, go through the desk for a pen or Sharpie with which to write names upon their mortarboards. Yank open the cabinet doors to hang their hangered robes over the top edge, to seek out the mirror to practice looking cool.

Yes, The Reaping is an annual event at Newmentia. Let the record show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has been drawn for The Reaping EVERY SINGLE YEAR! Yes! In spite of all the other possible tributes. In spite of never having asked for one morsel from the cafeteria, not one trip through the line after butting ahead of the pupils, asking, "Could I just have a plate of chicken nuggets? Can I just have a piece of chicken? May I just have a chicken sandwich? Give me just a chicken patty?" No. Nothing extra. Yet Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's name seems to be the only one in the giant fishbowl every year.

This morning I surveyed the carnage. Only two hangers to be harvested this year. One broken, over on the assignment staging/turn-in area near the pencil sharpener. And one unbroken, hanging from the corkboard strip above the whiteboard. One candy wrapper on the very first desk inside the door. Pretty clean, really, since that time there was a whole florist's box with five or six wilted boutonnieres, a plethora of hangers, one tree worth of programs, and a shirt. I credit The Reaper with performing clean-up duty.

However...I soon noticed that my DNA double helix, drawn so carefully on the board, its color-coded nitrogen bases paired by dashed-line hydrogen bonds, adenine-thymine, guanine-cytosine posed so prettily upon the ribbons of sugar and phosphate...had been besmirched! Somebody had taken a licked finger and dragged it through the deoxyribonucleic acid model. Which spoiled the masterpiece, and did no favor to the dry erase board.

Upon further scrutiny, it appeared that my COWlendar pictures had been rearranged. And that my Far Side calendar artwork had been redistributed.

But the most disturbing event of this year's Reaping has to be the discovery of the contents of my wastebasket. Oh, not by Mrs. Hillbilly Mom herself. By a lad who apparently had his head in the wastebasket.

"WHY IS THERE A DIAPER IN YOUR WASTEBASKET?"

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom wanted to shout, "Beats the not-heaven outta me!" But she refrained. And instead asked, "Why was your head in my wastebasket?"

Come to think of it, there WAS a strange announcement as we were leaving at the speed of light after having shed our grand graduation robes. "Any teacher who needs to be let into their room, contact the office. We had to lock the doors." Apparently, bands of latecomers were roving through the classrooms.

Yeah! Let others share in the glory of The Reaping!

I only shudder to think what must have been laid upon my desks in order for a diaper to be deposited in my wastebasket. Something tells me it wasn't the seniors.

Some people just ain't right.