The Celebrated Short-Tine Fork Of One Hillmomba Kitchen

Funny how things disappear around a house. How things disappear, about the same time a child moves away to college. A child who denies taking any household items with him.

The #1 son is home this week. You'd think one more mouth to feed wouldn't make much difference in the housework scheme. But you'd be wrong. One more mouth to feed makes four times the dishes to wash. By hand, I might add, because perhaps I've been remiss in informing you that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has no dishwasher. Like the courtesy of Fred's two feet propel the Flintstonemobile around Bedrock, the courtesy of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's hands clean the dishes in the Mansion.

Last night I had to wash the dishes before I could make supper. That’s because, when left home alone, #1 fancies himself a five-star chef. A five-star chef without a dishwashing staff. It’s a good thing Goodwill doesn’t charge by the pound, because the bowl my five-star chef used to slurp his gourmet ramen noodles was quite hefty. I know it was his bowl, because that bowl was not from around here. All maroon and heavy ceramic, a singleton in an eight-place-setting world.

Let the record show that I called The Pony to the kitchen to pick up his food. I'm a short-temper cook, you know. The Pony was having Devil's Playground Buitoni Sweet Italian Sausage Tortelloni with Classico Four-Cheese Pasta Sauce, and four pieces of garlic bread made with Italian bread spread with Save A Lot Home Churned margarine mixed with minced garlic from a squeeze bottle. Yeah. I know. I can't avoid the name-dropping in this gourmet feast. The Pony trotted upstairs and grabbed his portion. Then I called for Farmer H, who was having the same main course, but with garlic cheese bread made by adding mozzarella, and also a bowl of broccoli with cherry tomatoes. Finally it was time for #1 to fetch his meal, the same as Farmer H's, with the substitution of salad for broccoli. Uh huh. It's quite exhausting to cook for these helpless people. Oh, and because the tortelloni didn't stretch that far, I was having leftover chicken livers with a salad.

However...at the moment of calling #1 to the kitchen, I was standing at the sink up to my elbows in soapy water and eating equipment.

"Hey!" #1 was outraged. "There's no small fork!"

"Well, we used to have eight of them, but ever since you went away to college, we only have four. The Pony is eating with one, and three are at the bottom of this sink, because they are dirty."

"I haven't even used a fork since I've been home!" Said the eater of two bowls of strawberry shortcake consumed two hours apart on Saturday evening. "I don't know why I get accused of taking the small forks."

"Because you and The Pony are the only ones to use the small forks. They disappeared right after you left for college. Like, the first time I washed dishes after you left for college. Dad doesn't use them. I'm the keeper of every kitchen tool under the sun. And I don't see any reason for The Pony to hoard them, because that would be like biting off his nose and then stabbing it with a fork and throwing away the fork, just to spite his face. Besides, you had ramen noodles, I see, while we were at school. I know you didn't eat them with your hands."

"I used my own fork! I have four!"

"Of course you do! I rest my case. The four short forks from our drawer."

"NO! It's MY fork. They're a quarter apiece at Goodwill. They are totally different from your short forks."

"Well, I'll find out when I get to the bottom of this sink. Here. I'll wash a short fork for you. Look. It's one of ours."

"You'll see."

Yeah. But I didn't. There was no unmatching silverware. Only that heavy bowl.

Somebody's been fibbin'.

A Classroom Ain't Safe In A School Full Of Seniors

The Reaping.

The Reaping is an annual event at Newmentia. One teacher is chosen each year to sacrifice his/her classroom for the seniors to use as a primpatorium before the graduation ceremony. To mill around willy-nilly, go through the desk for a pen or Sharpie with which to write names upon their mortarboards. Yank open the cabinet doors to hang their hangered robes over the top edge, to seek out the mirror to practice looking cool.

Yes, The Reaping is an annual event at Newmentia. Let the record show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has been drawn for The Reaping EVERY SINGLE YEAR! Yes! In spite of all the other possible tributes. In spite of never having asked for one morsel from the cafeteria, not one trip through the line after butting ahead of the pupils, asking, "Could I just have a plate of chicken nuggets? Can I just have a piece of chicken? May I just have a chicken sandwich? Give me just a chicken patty?" No. Nothing extra. Yet Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's name seems to be the only one in the giant fishbowl every year.

This morning I surveyed the carnage. Only two hangers to be harvested this year. One broken, over on the assignment staging/turn-in area near the pencil sharpener. And one unbroken, hanging from the corkboard strip above the whiteboard. One candy wrapper on the very first desk inside the door. Pretty clean, really, since that time there was a whole florist's box with five or six wilted boutonnieres, a plethora of hangers, one tree worth of programs, and a shirt. I credit The Reaper with performing clean-up duty.

However...I soon noticed that my DNA double helix, drawn so carefully on the board, its color-coded nitrogen bases paired by dashed-line hydrogen bonds, adenine-thymine, guanine-cytosine posed so prettily upon the ribbons of sugar and phosphate...had been besmirched! Somebody had taken a licked finger and dragged it through the deoxyribonucleic acid model. Which spoiled the masterpiece, and did no favor to the dry erase board.

Upon further scrutiny, it appeared that my COWlendar pictures had been rearranged. And that my Far Side calendar artwork had been redistributed.

But the most disturbing event of this year's Reaping has to be the discovery of the contents of my wastebasket. Oh, not by Mrs. Hillbilly Mom herself. By a lad who apparently had his head in the wastebasket.

"WHY IS THERE A DIAPER IN YOUR WASTEBASKET?"

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom wanted to shout, "Beats the not-heaven outta me!" But she refrained. And instead asked, "Why was your head in my wastebasket?"

Come to think of it, there WAS a strange announcement as we were leaving at the speed of light after having shed our grand graduation robes. "Any teacher who needs to be let into their room, contact the office. We had to lock the doors." Apparently, bands of latecomers were roving through the classrooms.

Yeah! Let others share in the glory of The Reaping!

I only shudder to think what must have been laid upon my desks in order for a diaper to be deposited in my wastebasket. Something tells me it wasn't the seniors.

Some people just ain't right.

It's A Good Thing I'm Not A Giraffe

Hey! Remember that old Porter Wagoner/Dolly Parton song, "Is Forever Longer Than Always"? I'm sure you'll know it if you hear it. I was going to give you a link, but YouTube is mad at me. I can't wait to tell my BFF Google, but I think they might be cousins, so maybe I shouldn't vent.

Anyhoo...that's what I'm going to ask Farmer H when we're both retired. Is forever longer than always? Because I don't know how long I can stand him shoving his roving arm up under my pillows every night. No, I'm not using a euphemism. I mean my actual pillows. The three I have piled JUST RIGHT, so perfect that Goldilocks would rest her head there if she had the chance. Thing is, by the time I go to bed, I have to fight off the invasion of the pillow latcher. Farmer H, you see, does not steal them for himself. He simply disrupts the lay of the stand. I stack them. There's a squishy one on the bottom, against the headboard. Then a flat one that ramps up against it. Then my main pillow, which is sort of the capstone to the other two. Together, they provide a restful slumber for my weary head.

MY NECK BREAKS EVERY NIGHT THAT FARMER H SETS THE PILLOWS ASKEW!

I might as well chuck that whole handbasket factory idea, and invest in neck braces. Farmer H roots his big fat anaconda arm under the bottom two pillows, and knocks them a-kilter. He denies it, of course. And in a hateful, huffy manner. "I didn't touch your pillows!" he snarls, while he is buried up to his bicep under my three-tiered headrest.

What I really want to do is fill that section of bed with mousetraps. Armed mousetraps! But then I think he might not feel the snap, like an evil poodle may not feel the bite of the BB when shot for yard invasion with intent to rough up my sweet, sweet Juno. So maybe I should set a big ol' bear trap next to my pillows. That would do the trick! For Farmer H, of course. For that poodle, I would have to put the bear trap in the yard.

In fact, a bear trap would help with my other idea. The idea that Farmer H should remove his arms every night before bed. You know, like that Inspector Gadget toy that my kids used to get limb by dismembered limb with their Happy Meal. Farmer H could snap off his arms every night at bedtime. Not the whole arm. Just the forearms. He could keep them in violin cases under the bed. Though it might be difficult to latch and unlatch the violin cases once his forearms were off. But that's not my problem. A good night's sleep with my JUST RIGHT pillows is my problem. I don't care what it takes to get me there.

I think, once we are both retired, that Farmer H and I should sleep on different shifts, in different locations. Him out in the corn crib in the evening, and me in the bed with my pillow tower in the early morning.

Excuse me. I'm off to build a corn crib.

The Secret Of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's Success

Every class period, after the bell rings to dismiss the pupils to their next class, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom walks from the back corner of her room, where the control center is located due to a plethora of wires dropped down along the wall from the ceiling, and goes to the hallway to supervise foot traffic. By the time she reaches her doorway, there are already new pupils pouring in the door. Sometimes, her room seems like a graveyard: people are dying to get in!

Each day, there is a helpful pupil who pushes the door back against the wall, allowing others to barge in ahead. "Hold it right there," says Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. But this time of year, they know what to do. Then she puts her right foot upon her long wooden doorstop, and with one smooth move shoots it across that doorway and under the door. VOILA! Door propped by the doorstop.

Last week, one of the members of the Puffs-eating, Germ-X spraying class walked in at the very moment of stoppage. "OOH! Like a BOSS!" So impressed was he that he continued singing the praises of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's doorstopping acumen.

"You must finally be on time," replied one young lass. "Mrs. Hillbilly Mom does that every day. She's a ninja!"

Indeed. Later in the day, one pupil wished that doorstopping was an Olympic sport--because Mrs. Hillbilly Mom would have a gold medal.

Much like the way to get to Carnegie Hall is practice, practice, practice...the way to learn Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's doorstopping technique is to do it six times a day, five days a week, 174 days a year, for 15 years.

Doorstopping is not an innate skill.

This Is Why We Can't Have Fluffy Soft Nose-Friendly Things

Have I mentioned that I am OH SO GLAD that the school year end is drawing nigh?

Today we had our special assembly to hand out recognition to high achievers. The seniors will graduate on Sunday, then the rest of us have another week to go. I don't have any seniors, but I have juniors. Who think they are the new seniors.

"Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, do you have any tissues? Because I'm going to cry my eyes out at that assembly when I see the seniors for the last time."

Let the record show that this lad was by no stretch of the imagination going to cry his eyes out, OR miss the seniors, as they have a low tolerance for his antics. As does Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, though she cannot show her displeasure in quite the same manner.

"Seriously, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, do you have any tissues?"

"They're right there by the pencil sharpener, where they've been for the last three years."

Let the record further show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom had gotten out a new box of Puffs With Lotion just this morning, her second period class polishing off a box a week or more, perhaps the sickliest, most allergic children ever grouped into a singular class period, and so inept with the Germ-X that they were banned early-on from that disinfecting gel to save Mrs. HM's pocketbook and the spines and skulls of pupils after them who might slip in the puddles left behind.

I stepped out into the hall to put the kibosh on any planned shenanigans on this senior last day. A shout of, "Dude! Are you serious?" caught my ear. Rather common for this group currently wreaking havoc on the inside of my domain. I peered around the corner and saw that Crybaby had just flung a stack of Puffs With Lotion all the way across the room at a young man The Pony refers to as Rat Eyes, who had just flung an equal stack back. Puffs With Lotion littered the classroom floor.

"YES! ARE YOU SERIOUS? YOU HAVE JUST WASTED A WHOLE BOX OF TISSUES! THAT I PAY FOR. NOT THE SCHOOL. AREN'T YOU ENTITLED, DESTROYING MY STUFF FOR THAT LITTLE JOKE! HA HA. HOW FUNNY. NOW I HAVE TO GO BUY MORE TISSUES. GET THAT MESS CLEANED UP."

Let the record even further show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has a very low tolerance for such cutesiness. In years past, one of her favorite mantras was, "You're not that cute, and you're not that funny." She did not even bother with that declaration this day, what with seeing the well-mannered pupils looking so very sorry that she had been faced with such an affront. Nothing licks one's virtual wounds like a cat's rough tongue or the visible pity of the majority of one's class roster.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom does not condone violence. But if those seniors were to have a physical difference of opinion with Crybaby, she would UNDERSTAND.

Because Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Is THAT Sweet!

Let the record show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's room has been invaded by an army on the march. An army of ants. Yesterday, they sent a squad on a reconnaissance mission. A squad which was summarily dispatched by Mrs. HM with a few spritzes of Fantastik.

This morning, Mrs. HM entered the building only to find Mrs. Not-A-Cook and the principal's wife headed to her room. Mrs. Not-A-Cook said, "I've just got to show her all these ants in your room." Hmpf. Tattletale! Treating my den of learning like a common tourist attraction, before I even had the chance to arrive and check out the occupation.

Millions of ants swarmed along the gray rubber baseboards at the juncture of slick, white-painted concrete block wall, and scuffed white-with-gray-speckles industrial tile floor. Okay. Maybe not millions. But hundreds. More than a reconnaissance squad. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, it seems, had won the battle but lost the war.

Mr. Principal was driven up in a jeep, decked out in camouflage fatigues and a netted helmet walked down the hall to survey the invasion. He was shown to the source by Mrs. HM, who pointed out that the queue seemed to originate in the doorjamb of the storage room next door, from a crack down through the tile. He soon returned with a can of aerosol death, and snuffed the life from the invaders. Which left Mrs. HM with a long line of corpses, and a lungful of chemicals.

Funny how none of the pupils mentioned the smattering of insect corpses that led from the hall. across the front of the room under the whiteboard. to within six tiles of the wastebasket/pencil sharpener area. Unlike yesterday, when a handful of live ants going no farther than the doorjamb commanded their attention each class period.

Just goes to show that pupils are apparently more observant during a final exam than on an incentive day when a movie is on the agenda.

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Publicly Commiserate

Sometimes, you gotta take a stand. Do what's right. Step in to defend the downtrodden. UNLESS...that means going against a member of the custodial staff! Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's mom didn't raise a fool. Mrs. HM knows that she does NOT want to ruffle the feather-duster of any member of the maintenance team. No sirree, Bob!

I was leaving the cafeteria yesterday, the last of the Newmentia Lunch Time Think Tank, what with me having plan time right after, and in even less hurry than the others to get to class. I waited until the straggling lunch-eaters had their turn at the tray-deposit window. No need to jam up and get whacked with a book bag as the dervishes whirled around to leave.

Custy was standing right beside the left trash can. Custy, who cleans the cafeteria between lunch shifts. Right beside the big gray plastic trash can on wheels, lined with a black trash bag. The kids, maybe five or six of them, stepped between the two giant trash cans, thumped their trays against the side to unstick any uneaten delicacies, as instructed forever by the lady who wields that shower-sprayer thingy.

"Don't you people know enough to even out your trash, and not put it all in one can so it's too heavy?" Out of the mouth of Custy.

Seriously. I don't think that ever crossed those kids' minds. I never thought anything about it. As long as the trash wasn't over the top, it seemed fair enough to dump the trash in. That's what a trash can is for, right? Besides, most kids are right-handed. So they're going to whack their trays against the side of the trash can to their right. Maybe that's why it fills up more. AND, let's not forget that Custy was standing right beside the left trash can. Nobody would want to splatter foodstuffs onto Custy while whacking their tray. Our kids have manners like that.

Did I stick up for those kids, when they looked perplexed at being called out for doing something wrong that they didn't know was wrong?

You can bet your bottom dollar I did not.

I've got another year to go. No need to set myself up for a war with the custodial staff. Especially so soon after that Cus thorn was removed from my side.