Every Which Way Is Loose

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has hand-me-down furniture in her classroom.

There was a time when she couldn't even get that, being designated as a special teacher. One who worked with at-risk youth. As if she and they were not as deserving as regular pupils and teachers. Sad but true. Even when I was asked to give up the at-risk youth (who I had been asked to take on to begin with) it took several years to regain status as a core class teacher. Which still left me at the bottom of the pile.

My desk was a cast-off when a HOME EC teacher got a new one. Not that she was not as deserving as a regular teacher, heh, heh! I also used to have her old rolly chair, but the summer-work-program youth used it for races down the ramp to the library, and broke off a wheel. Oh, nobody told me about it. I found out when I went to move it back to where my furniture should have gone during those first pre-school-year days of workshops. Good thing it wasn't in the right place, just waiting for me to plop down in it! Anyhoo...I moved it, and the whole wheel and metal connector thingy fell off. I tried to imagine the youth setting the trap. Maybe he went on to work at a museum, and knows something about King Tut's broken fake beard thingy that was glued back on.

Anyhoo...I now have two rolly chairs. That's because I guess they figure two crappy rolly chairs are as good as one professional quality rolly chair. These two came from the cast-offs that were in one of the computer labs. Not good enough for students to sit on, but good enough for Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's rumpus. Thing is, these rolly chairs were designed to roll on carpet. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has industrial grade tile. You don't know how many times she has nearly broken her neck on those rollies.

The wheels don't turn when I go to roll forward or sideways. They scoot. And no matter how many times I stand up, kick that starfish-looking-base for the wheels around, and try to make them roll forward and scoot backward...it doesn't work.

Every time I go to sit down on that rolly chair, it rolls away from me like a paraplegic bat in a mini wheelchair with greased wheels out of not-heaven! Even when I hold the side and sit down, it shoots backwards and into the wall like I was catching a cannon ball with my gut.

I don't have a solution. But at least the window is there, and I don't slam my head into the wall, but only suffer whiplash several times per day. For only 75 more days.