The Passive Aggressive Is Strong In That One

A less seasoned teacher might not recognize the signs. Might not know when one's goat is about to be gotten. Or might not harbor a full-fledged undiagnosed case of paranoia.

Take that phone girl from yesterday. Phonie left her phone on the desk on purpose, turned on, showing a picture of her sitting at her desk, figuratively thumbing her nose at my lax attention to rulescoffing that day. Then she came BACK, because that gives her two jabs with a sharp phone stick at Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's tender, yet ample, underbelly. I ignored her and let the finders send her to the office for her phone. Do not engage. That's one of my cardinal rules for the Passies. Unless the lack of engagement enables a bigger scene.

Today Phonie came barreling down the hall bearing a tiny plate holding 4 flat discs of cooked edible dough dotted with chocolate fragments. She rounded the alcove and almost stepped through the door before I said, "Eh eh eh! Not in my classroom. Put them in your locker until after class." See? I was doing Phonie a favor. I could have let her enter the portal, then commanded that the contraband be used to feed the wastebasket. But no. I allowed her to use my time to stow her stash in a safe haven.

However...Phonie had no intention of putting those goodies away. She flounced back in the direction from whence she had come, and proffered her plate to the four teachers she had just passed on the way to my room. Cooing all the while, "Won't you have one? They're SO good!" See what she did there? I assume her plan was to carry them into my lair, flaunt them, wait for kids to beg for them, then bestow her gifts on the three friends who sit by her. When that class-disrupter went kaput, she opted for Plan B, which was to show me how polite she was to every teacher who adjoins my classroom. What she might have forgotten, or simply never knew, is that I don't care what she does, as long as my rules are followed.

If I cared, or if I was a vengeful person, I would have exclaimed later in the hour, when two visiting lasses brought in a whole tray of just-cooked edible dough discs dotted with chocolate fragments to offer me a treat, "Oh! They look and smell SO MUCH BETTER than those discs Phonie tried to bring in here!"

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is NOT a vengeful person. A simple, "No, thank you," sufficed.