When Educators Talk Shop, People Shouldn't Listen

You know there are certain professions that are high stress, right? And the members of such professions are sometimes misunderstood and misrepresented when they are overheard talking shop. It's not that they are poking fun at their situation. It's that they need a way to blow off steam. Firefighters make firefighter jokes, policemen make policemen jokes, doctors make doctor jokes, and lawyers...well...lawyers are simply b*stards. Anyhoo...my point is that nobody understands an educator like another educator.

At The Pony's luncheon for his special award this past weekend, parents and awardees and administrators were assigned places around the table. Uh huh. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom got the worst space, with her back to the dais, at at table shoved closer to the next table than necessary, so that the back of her chair was repeatedly rammed by the woman behind her, and the servers declared the area no-man's-land.

Of course Mrs. HM was all set to sit in another seat. But there was the business of those pesky place cards. And the other scholar with both parents and her administrator were already bearing down on our table. See,here's how those geniuses had it set up. The two scholars sat next to each other. The two administrators sat next to each other. And the mom sat opposite the mom, with the dad sitting opposite the dad. This was done, I'm sure, so the scholars could converse, and the administrators.

Well, converse our administrators did! Don't repeat this. I'm probably the only one who finds it funny.

The other scholar's administrator was a woman. She shared some of the requirements of her school. Graduation garb and ceremony. As did The Pony's administrator. Then the other scholar's administrator related the worst thing that's ever happened to her.

"At one graduation, a boy fell off the top bleacher. He was seriously hurt. We were very careful not to move his neck and spine. I called for an ambulance right away. I could tell how bad it was. But for some reason, there was a shortage of ambulances. They said, 'Try to make him comfortable. It's going to be a while.' Can you believe that? I knew we couldn't wait. We got him immobilized as best we could, and I ended up driving him to the ER. Thank goodness he came out of it okay."

"Huh. At one of OUR graduations, a graduate's grandma died of a heart attack in the audience during the recessional."

The other scholar's administrator looked at him. "You win."