Get On Out Of Here With Your Stick

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is an old dog who doesn't like new tricks. In fact, Mrs. HM is an old dog who hates new tricks like Lou Grant hates spunk. In fact, if you attempted to teach Mrs. HM a new trick, she would most likely growl, keep laying on the porch in the sun, and say in Dogese, "Get away from me, you effin effer, eff you and your new effin tricks! Go eff yourself!"

So Mrs. Hillbilly Mom was not having it today when an influx of Li'l Yellers invaded Newmentia after school. Oh, she sees nothing inherently wrong with hosting a busload of Li'l Yellers. It's only the fact that they were there, when normally they are not.

You see, Mrs. HM already had her nose out of joint, what with spending 4/7 of her day out of her comfort zone classroom in order to help her pupils work on gathering information for their upcoming projects. She did that to her own self, as she does every year, but believes in the importance of the scientific method so much that she puts it ahead of her own tranquility.

It did not help matters that Mrs. HM was feeling a bit...how you say...indisposed at the end of the day. That she could not simply trot up the hall a few tens of feet to have the trots in the faculty women's restroom. No. She had to hold it in. Count the minutes until she could gallop up the hall to find relief in the sanctity of the one-seat private privy. Count down, from 18 minutes, until the final bell. So it did not behoove matters when she heard the chatter of Li'l Yellers outside the portal while doing her business.

The bus-waiters also had their noses put out of joint, because all of the cafeteria tables were put up so the Li'l Yellers could use the area where they usually sit 30 minutes awaiting their own release. So you would think that all the Li'l Yellers would be held within the unconfining confines of the cleaned-out cafeteria. But no.

As Mrs. HM exited her dump station, there was a line of Li'l Yellers against the wall opposite the teacher workroom. And as Mrs. HM ran her copies for the morrow, the Li'l Yellers watched her with their big ol' Li'l Yeller eyes. Li'l Yeller eyes which followed her down the hall to her room, past scampering Li'l Yellers darting out of the doorless concrete-block maze of the girls' restroom entrance to stop without warning in front of the two drinking fountains, only one of which their Li'l Yeller mouths could reach, while their Big Yeller handler hollered from inside the restroom for them to come back.

AND, as Mrs. HM sat at her desk to finish up the loose ends of the day, a mob of Li'l Yellers formed right outside her classroom door! Loud and giggly Li'l Yellers. With a Big Yeller handler, to bend and stretch, reach for the sky, stand on tippy-toes oh so high, as if Miss Lois herself was there encouraging them.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom had had enough. It's not like there wasn't room in the cleaned-out cafeteria for this group. It's not like there wasn't room in the hallway just outside the cleaned-out cafeteria, right across from the teacher workroom and bathrooms and drinking fountains. It's not like there wasn't room just past Mrs. HM's room, a whole hall, in fact, at least five times the size of the area in front of Mrs. HM's room.

I could barely get out my door alcove and squeeze past the sitting circle of Li'l Yellers to make my escape.

Grrrr...Mrs. Hillbilly Mom hates new tricks.