From The Efforts Of Many, One Kick-Butt Punchline

Yesterday I had a bit of tampering with my school laptop. That's how I see it, anyway. A piece disappeared, and the mouse and number pad were plugged in to different hole thingies, resulting in the number pad looking like he had drawn his last breath. Oh, and the fluorescent light over my desk went kaput, and my clock stopped at 1:50 a.m. All in a night's work for somebody, I suppose.

My first thought was that an insider was pranking me. I went straight to Arch Nemesis and flat-out asked her if, perhaps, she had borrowed my laptop after school. She borrowed it once before when I was out sick several years ago. Besides, she works an after school program, PLUS she has a master key. Uh huh. I hear all of your CSI minds a-hummin'. While I am hummin' Baba O'Riley "...mmm blah blah teenage wasteland..."

Archie, however, denied any wrongdoing. I believed her. She is nothing if not direct. Once caught, she will confess and pat herself on the back for her stealthy outsmartyness. I pushed it a bit further, to see if she would crack under greater pressure.

"Oh, and while you weren't in my room messing with my laptop, did you, perhaps, climb on a chair and disable the light over my desk?" I knew that she had not, because it went out while I was there.

"Now that, I DID do. Heh, heh. But seriously. Did you hear what I did to Mrs. NotACook?"

I had not. But I was about to hear the sordid tale. Seems that Archy needed to borrow a laptop a couple days before my vandalismization. She asked NotACook, who was away from her room doing class-within-a-class duties. We both know that NotACook is even more tech incompetent than I. NotACook agreed. With conditions.

"Can you do that? I've never had it off that black thing. Do you know how to take it off without breaking it?"

Archy assured her that she could. She removed the laptop from the dock and used it for a class period. At the end, she made a bit of mischief before returning it.

"Her laptop was just like the day it came from the factory. Blue screen. No screen saver."

I nodded a knowing nod. Without revealing that mine, too, had the blue screen and no fancy add-ons.

"So I installed three screen savers. The first one looked like NotACook's blue screen, but it had a big crack across it. The next one was a group of, um...Christmas men. The third one was a fluffy feel-good Christmas screensaver. I told NotACook that I had put her laptop back. She asked if it was okay, and I told her yes. That she should check it out. I followed her into her room. She logged on and I waited."

NotACook said it looked fine. I saw that screensaver pop up. 'LOOK! It's broken!' That didn't phase her. She acted like it was nothing. So I fiddled with it like I was going to fix the crack. I put the Christmas Men on there. When they popped up, NotACook almost hyperventilated. She loud-whispered to get that off of there. So I did. And the fluffy one came up, and she said nothing. I told Mr. Principal the story. At lunch the next day, he asked her if she knew why the Tech Guy had called and told him she had inappropriate material on her laptop. She was flustered, but told him it wasn't her fault. Now she's paranoid."

This morning as The Pony and I navigated T-Hoe onto the road beside school to get to the back parking lot, I saw NotACook walking back and forth down the sidewalk on the front side of the building. The sidewalk that runs in front of my room and hers, with a small expanse of grass between the sidewalk and the building. I couldn't wait to tell Arch Nemesis that not only had she driven NotACook to laptop pr0n, but that she had apparently sent her over the edge, on the way to ruin, as evidenced by her new hobby of streetwalking.

NotACook went down the hall and I motioned her over. "I know what you did. First you put a naughty screensaver on your laptop, and the next thing I know, you're out walking the street."

"Oh, you heard about my laptop! Ha ha. I wasn't walking the street. I thought I saw a pill bottle out my window, and I knew we couldn't leave something like that laying in the grass. So I went looking for it. But it was only a mints container."

Sometimes, people hand you a punchline on a silver platter, with a food dome keeping it fresh. "So you mean that not only are you a pr0n downloader AND a streetwalker, but you're also a drug-seeker?"

A Crown, A Trophy, And A Blanket Of Roses

It was a close contest today, my friends. Two competitors, neck and neck, rounding the curve, pounding down the home stretch, surging toward the finish line. Nearly a photo finish. But not quite. One clear winner emerged.

Yes, today was a red-letter, blue-ribbon day for kids saying things that made them look...um...how shall we say...less intelligent than they really are. You see, I am confident that the way it came out was not the way these students really meant to say it. They couldn't. Surely.

The first runner-up is...

One student was selling saver cards. Those fundraiser pieces of plastic that entitle you to benefits worth more than you pay. I have one myself. A couple of different kinds, actually. One is like a credit card that I can show and get a free Burger King chicken sandwich with the purchase of one. Or a free Big Mac when I buy one. There are other bargains, but those are the two we've used so far. Did you know that's a savings of more than $3.50 a pop? And there are unlimited pops until September 2013.

Anyway, this one kid was selling a saver card for a pizza chain. It was a little different, because it was a peeler card. Once you use a deal, it's done. The restaurant folks are supposed to take that little sticker when you use it. This card happens to have eight peelers. They're good for things like two-liter bottles of soda, or half off on a lunch buffet, or two dollars off on a pizza.

So...Runner Up agreed to buy one tomorrow. And Seller joked about him buying two. Runner Up said he couldn't. That was way too expensive. Seller said it wasn't. Because look at all the sticker deals you can get for your ten dollars. Runner Up stopped in his tracks. Leaned toward Seller.

"You mean you can use more than ONE?"

Sweet Gummi Mary! I was sure that one would take today's cake. But I was wrong, my friends. OH SO WRONG. Because not even fifty minutes later, I was pitched one high and outside, just where I like it, begging to be smacked into right field.

And The Grand Champion is...

I was pleasantly puttering at my desk, doing something trivial, like grading papers and entering them into my gradebook program, while the class finished up an assignment. And out of the blue, I heard, "Where do those people come from? Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, do you know? Those people who speak Arabic?"

Oh, dear. I couldn't help myself. She's usually such a bright girl. I'm sure she knew this information. She just drew a blank.

"Let's see. I'm going out on a limb here. But I'm going to say that the people who speak Arabic come from...wait a minute...wait for it...ARABIA!"

Thank you. They'll be here all week.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Has The Nose Of A Bloodhound

My students are so considerate.

Just after lunch, one asked me if I had manure in my room. Well, no. As if I could stash such a treat in there without people knowing. The canary started singing that I DID TOO have manure in my room. Because Boot Boy walks through it every morning, and then scrapes it off at one of my desks first hour. Such conspiracists they are! Turning mud into manure.

Canary commanded me to command Boot Boy to get a broom and clean it up. Like it was her business. Like I wanted to hunt him down and invite such a spectacle into my classroom to distract my students from their lesson on groundwater. She has not, perhaps, heard of this newfangled concept called a custodian. Does not realize that we don't make students do the manual labor for free? Okay. They DO stack the chairs after lunch out of the way for a good floor-mopping. But I believe those boys are paid in diet soda.

No fewer than two other canaries sang that sad song later in the afternoon. I smelled a rat. Not manure. Either three canaries were out to get an alleged poop-tracker, or a rat was running his mouth about soiling my classroom for hall cred.

Yes, these kids are SO concerned about the cleanliness of my classroom. The same kids who leave granola bar wrappers, pieces of styrofoam cup, gum packages, used tissues, handed-back work with their name on it, unstarted-work with their name on it, broken mechanical pencils, bobby pins, used band-aids, and errant shiny colored candies upon my floor are worried about three flakes of mud.

I also smell a teenage romance gone bad.

No More Mrs. Nice Guy

I am feeling quite cantankerous today. Angry, even. Like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli. Perhaps it's simply full moon fever. Something has gotten into me. But rather than let my hair-trigger temper fire off a spiteful spate of vitriol, I shall use this space to mourn the loss of innocence.

The Pony started it. As we were leaving Newmentia, we spied a friend of his walking home across the parking lot, down the gravel trail that the city fathers poured after one young daredevil was smited by an SUV mirror in a game of chicken on the edge of the roadway early one sundrenched morning. I would have used the word smitten, but that would sound like he was in love with the mirror, not beaten black-and-blue by it. Allegedly.

Accounts of the original incident vary. The smiter never even knew she smit him. And the smitee declared that the poor woman veered thirty feet off the road to hit him while he walked along a copse of trees. Poppycock! Many a morning, I saw him walking on the road-edge, refusing to yield to oncoming traffic, drivers squinting into the just-risen sun. Let's just say that no charges were filed in the incident, the smitee wore an arm sling for one day, and after he enrolled elsewhere the trail magically appeared.

The Pony's friend is a nice young fellow. But one who would probably rather ride than walk in the thirty-four-degree chill. In a simpler world, I would have called to him and offered a ride. The Pony and I were driving his direction. We could have dropped him off a mile or so away, in town. But that simple gesture is not possible in this day and age. I have no chauffeurs license. I could be subject to a lawsuit in an accident. I could be accused of hinky wrong-doing if some agenda-ed person saw Friend climb into my T-Hoe.

Welcome to present-day Hillmomba. Where Mrs. Hillbilly Mom cannot be Mrs. Nice Guy.

Mrs. HM Needs A Flapper Necklace Made Of Garlic

I am about 38 winks shy of feeling rested.

The students are trying their best to share every ailment known to the common man. The nerve of them! They dare to walk down the hall while coughing. To hand in a paper that has not been run through a UV light chamber. To borrow the one pencil that I loan. To turn their head in my direction as I walk by. To lean on my desk, touching papers that I need to touch. To lean over my shoulder in order to see their grade on the monitor.

I am being proactive. I try to take in a big breath when I see a student headed for my desk. To let it out slowly, so as to achieve negative air flow from their breath. I refuse to raise my hands above my shoulders until I have doused them with Germ-X.  No nose-rubbing, eye scratching, lip touching, movements for me. I have already been sick this school year. I remain forever vigilant.

The Pony has a sore throat. His third one since mid-October.

I am thinking of sending him abroad.

Don't Let Him Carry The Nuclear Football

From the man who lost a donut under a chair at St. Louis Children's Hospital, and the man who lost a banana peel in a La-Z-Boy recliner, and the man who lost his partial plate in a mouse-hole until his Christmas Eve prime rib workplace dinner...I bring you:

The Man Who Lost His Medication On The Bathroom Floor

Seriously. What is he doing in there? Three times in the last month, I have found one of Farmer H's pills on the bathroom floor. Don't think I'm some Sherlock-Holmes-hatted, magnifying-glass-wielding gumshoe. I discover them by stepping on them with my bare feet. Usually the heel area. It is not pleasant.

The pill in question is some kind of gel-cap. It's a bit bigger than a Tic-Tac. Clear to light amber in color. See-through. Gooshy. I am shocked that my feet do not pop this pill. Not that they are drug-seeking feet. I mean pop as in explode. Not that my feet are so bony that a sharp point could do damage. They are wide, flat, spread-out feet. Like you see on people who live in the wild and don't wear shoes. I suppose the fact that my soles envelop the pill speaks for the thick cushion of fat in the heel bursa area. That I even feel it under my foot is, perhaps, the miracle. Thank the Gummi Mary, nobody is slipping a pea under my mattress.

Does Farmer H make a game of drug-taking? Toss each pill in the air like a puffy popcorn kernel, to catch it in his mouth, high-five worthy, to impress himself in the mirror? Does he have a hole in his chin? Take so many pills that losing one goes unnoticed? Shove them in his mouth by the handful? Does he even know when he drops one? Does he replace it in his pill-swallowing line-up, or go without? I questioned him after the first two drug discoveries. He said it was just a vitamin of some kind. A vitamin prescribed by his doctor, and paid for each month at the pharmacy. I believe Farmer H is taking this acceptable-loss attitude a bit too far. When I tell him of my discovery, and place it on the counter by the sink, he tells me to throw it away.

I fear that I might have to start wrapping Farmer H in a towel so he can't flail at me with his arms, clamp his nose shut, stuff the pill in his mouth, put my hand over his lips, and stroke his throat until he swallows. I'll let you know how that goes. Just as soon as I grow a third hand.

Letting The Pony Express

The Pony has grown a bit contrary and argumentative in his teenage years. I don't know where he gets it. I'm pretty sure from his father, but to pose that hypothesis would bring on a quarrel.

This morning we battled over him wearing his dark blue Adidas slides with the white stripes in The Devil's Playground. I of the opinion that it is November twenty-freaking-fourth, and slides are not worn with Carhartt-colored carpenter pants in public. The Pony of the opinion that since I let him wear his slides before, it was fine now. Never mind that before was in the summer, with shorts. Yesterday we had it out over whether he had to wear ankle socks with his pants and slides, even though he was remaining in T-Hoe while I went in Save A Lot. My argument being that with a temperature of forty-one degrees, and twenty mile-per-hour winds, socks were necessary. Which was actually a continuation of the disagreement over why he could not wear shorts instead of pants.

Today on the way to town, I pointed out a frozen rack of deer ribs on the right, on the banks of the creek we had just crossed via low-water bridge. I like to act as tour guide. Spout little-known facts. Hey! I've done it since my kids were captives in rear-facing infant car seats. And they're both pretty accomplished in the halls of academia, so I will take full credit for expanding their little minds as I saw fit. You never know what they're going to absorb.

Let the record show that The Pony refuses to ride in the shotgun seat. He sits behind me. No amount of coaxing or cajoling can get him to move up front. So I never know if he's responding to me or doing his own thing.

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"There's a rack of frozen deer ribs."

"I KNOW!"

"Well, excuse me. I was just pointing it out. They were there yesterday morning, with a dog gnawing on them."

"Uh...I WAS THERE!"

"Yeah, but I never know if you're listening to me."

"I always listen."
 
"That's a dirty lie. I'm going to come back there an set your pants ablaze. Liar, liar."

"I would let them burn. Until they were shorts-length, and then I would put them out."

"Very funny. You DO NOT always listen. Sometimes you have your head in a book. Sometimes you have your head in your laptop."

"Well, I didn't yesterday. You should know that. You would have heard my fingers clicking on the keys."

"I don't know what kind of superhuman hearing you think I have."

"You can hear slightest murmur of discontent in your classroom."

"I'm trained for that. I can always hear discontent."

"Like a drill sergeant."

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I WILL take credit for The Pony's sense of humor.