Let the record show
that ever since I saw The Pony with his cell phone in his mouth last week…The
Pony has suffered from a virus that stuffs up his head and sores his throat and
clots his lungs with cough material.
Let the record further
show that Newmentia is without a custodian for the evening shift. Personnel has
been shuffled to fill in. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom’s regular custodian has been
temporarily replaced by an irregular, due to medical reasons in the ranks.
Yesterday after
school, after his Scholar Bowl practice, The Pony came back to my room to
gather my stuff for carrying out to T-Hoe. He’s a good Pony. Plus he needs a
ride home.
“You should take some cough medicine. You are all clogged up.”
“I don’t really want
to. Mrs. E said I sounded a lot better today.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about! You sound like CRAP!”
Just then a little old
man with white hair appeared behind Pony, in the doorway. That dude needed a
box of TicTacs like the Sidler. Neither one of us heard him come up. He simply
materialized. He was shorter than The Pony. He looked in, then turned an left.
“Who was that man?”
“I don’t know. You’re
the one who works here, not me.”
“Great. Just when I
said CRAP, he showed up. I’ll get called into the office tomorrow. I might be
on the news. Even though I was only telling my own personal son
that he sounded like crap.”
Today, right after the
Semi-Weekly Meeting of the Newmentia Lunch Time Think Tank dismissed, I saw my
regular cleaner-upper. “Hey, who is
cleaning my room these days?”
“Sissy Sissenstein.”
“Who? I mean that little old white-haired man who came to my room
around 4:15. The one who's cleaning it.”
“What man? There’s no
man cleaning your room. It’s Sissy Sissenstein. I come by and help her get
caught up. There’s no man.”
“Well, there was yesterday. Standing right in my doorway.”
“I don’t know who that
is. I’ve never seen a little old white-haired man in Newmentia.”
“Great. This morning, I walked in and saw the bag of trash tied up and
sitting on top of today’s assignments laid out on the desk up by the pencil
sharpener. I thought, ‘Oh. Maybe that little old white-haired man is getting
senile and forgot my trash.’ Now you tell me that he doesn’t even work here.
WHO WAS THAT MAN?”
“I don’t know. Sounds
like you had a visitor.”
Indeed. If I had known
the situation then, I would have yelled a lot more than ‘CRAP!’
The "visitor" that we girls learned about when we were 10 or 11 or 12--that visitor was not one that thrilled us.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like this one is also unwelcome...
Sioux,
ReplyDeleteLast time a weird man came to my door like that was on my plan time several years ago. I was having a discussion with the counselor, not about our "visitor," when an old dude asked us where the office was. Counselor turned and said over her shoulder, "You just passed it on your way to this room, right when you came in the door." We looked at each other. WAIT A MINUTE! She went after him.
That commenced a heated race around the upper and lower parking lots, and the whole Newmentia building, with the principal and AD in hot pursuit, while the old dude hollered that the principal of Basementia had taken his pontoon boat and wouldn't give it back.
The guy's old wife was waiting in the car. She told the police that he hadn't been acting right (NO FREAKIN' CRAP!), and they later found out he had a brain tumor.
Truth. Way more bizarre than fiction.