Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Gives Notice To The Newmentia Lunch Time Think Tank

On Tuesday, at approximately 11:09, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom gave notice to the Newmentia Lunch Time Think Tank.

"I don't mean to discourage all of you, but you might as well give up on winning the holiday door contest. Because I'm pretty sure my class is going to take it. I have the Voc/Ed kids, you know. Who are all about winning a school contest where the prize is nothing. And as you know, since we can work on it any hour of the day, from Monday morning until Wednesday 5th hour, as long as it is only our 5th hour pupils doing the work...I think you should know that I have ONE kid who has volunteered to maybe come in another hour and get it ready. Out of my four pupils who are not gone the first four periods to Voc/Ed. Oh, and we had a test on Monday, so we got in about 15 minutes of planning at the end of 5th hour. This morning nobody showed up to work. But I'm confident that today 5th hour, we'll get that baby going. Even though the girl who came up with the idea and drew the picture is out sick today. So...you may as well hang it up. Your hope, that is, of winning. Not your actual door decoration. Because I'm pretty sure my class will take the grand prize."

Would you believe that they did not seem intimidated?

Let the record show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's class did NOT win the door decorating contest. I can feel your shock emanating through my monitor. Arch Nemesis won, Sweet Alabama Beige was second, and Mrs. Not-A-Cook was third.

But that's not the story! The story is about how selfless and thoughtful my voc/ed kids are! Who knew? Seems like only yesterday (well, technically it WAS yesterday) that my pupils who decorated the door did not clean up their mess left from Wednesday when we rushed to an assembly right after hanging the door by the deadline of 5th hour dismissal bell.

I had The Pony put away the tubs of scissors and markers and glue that they left on my back desks instead of stowing them back in the cabinet. I left the sections of yellow and blue and black and white butcher paper crumpled under the TV, on the bottom shelf of the cart. I was sure they would clean up the mess Thursday. But no. No mention of it.

Today, we only had a half-class 5th hour, due to our early out. The minute those kids came in, I reminded them that the door needed to be undecorated, and the mess thrown away. They set to taking down the door. One of them wanted her main design, so another rolled it up for her. There was a roll of usable black paper that I told them to put back in the supply room. Meaning ONE of them. Yet THREE went to return it, and took their own sweet time coming back, with an alibi that Mrs. Tomato Squirter had been talking to them, and gave them each a candy cane. Uh huh. Rewarding herd mentality, giving away three canes when one should have sufficed, since it does not take THREE upperclassmen to carry one slim roll of paper back to the supply room.

But here's the kicker. That leftover crumpled paper?

"Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, this will not fit in your wastebasket."

"Then take it out to the big wastebasket in the cafeteria."

"BUT THEY ALREADY DUMPED THE TRASH!"

Uh huh. How thoughtful my pupils were of the workers who dumped the trash. Who dump the cafeteria trash each day after third lunch shift. Who are students in Voc/Ed with them. Getting out of a regular class to get credit for cleaning the cafeteria.

"Well, that's too bad. But I have news for you. That trash can in the cafeteria is not going to stay empty for the two weeks over Christmas vacation. It will have more trash in it by the time we leave in ten minutes. But if you're that concerned about them, maybe you should have thrown away your trash YESTERDAY! And then it would have been taken out and dumped TODAY! Right after lunch!"

Yes. Upperclassmen gonna upperclass. Gonna try to get the upper hand. Let the record show that the carefully-rolled-up and taped main door design was left laying on my back table. To greet us in two weeks when we return.