Mental Floss?

As I was discussing the year I was having with my students I was asked, "Jeff, why hasn't any of this made it into the blog?"  Fair question.  I had already decided, when I started writing, some rules that I would live by.  I would never say anything that would embarrass my kids (other than having to admit that I'm their father).  I would not resort to swearing to get my point across.  (I enjoy my 'G' rating and that I don't have to tell certain people not to read it)  And I would not talk about the students in a current class.  (I do not want any trouble from parents and confidentiality)  That said, I have a class, now, that will be blog after blog in years to come...but I cannot tell any more than that now.

But thinking about school this morning reminded me of a student who has unfortunately come to the end of my imaginary statute of limitations, so I am talking about him now.  As all teachers know, behind every blog worthy child is a blog-worthy parent.  Today is about just such a child with just such a parent.  By way of explanation I wasn't always a kindergarten teacher.  I started out working with college aged students, I went to high school for a few years, worked at junior high for a few ....days, and then came to 4th, 5th, and 6th grade for a decade or so.  Kindergarten followed that.  I figure my next moves will be pre-school followed by in-vitro education.  But I digress...

This 6th grader, let's call him Oliver, was a spirited child.  He was always up to something.  He cut the pictures of money out of a library book so he could try to spend them.  "Ollie, that money is fake dear...and we don't live in Bali."  He drew and signed nasty pictures in class...but blamed someone else.  He gave me a Christmas gift...and told me that he had stolen it.  You know, the usual.  Mom and I had, obviously, several conversations about his behavior and I continued to work with them in a reasonable and rational manner...until that day.  I had taken the class over to the science room for instruction and gone back to my room to get things ready for the weeks to come (prep) when I got a phone call.

"Jeff!  This is Mirian.  Oliver's mom is coming back to see you.  I couldn't stop her.  She says she wants to talk to you NOW!  The principal isn't here, what do you want me to do?"

"CALL THE POLICE and have her arrested for trespassing!...no wait, I need her to work with me.  It's prep time, I'll head her off and walk her back out.  Thanks Mirian."

I ran out of the room and started walking toward the front of the school hoping to keep everything quiet so everyone else could continue learning, unaware that something was going on.  I really had no idea what she could have wanted. 

I should, now, explain that the way a person looks does not describe who they are.  As much as it bothers me to do this I feel it is important to the humor of this story to describe this woman to you.  I have made it no secret that I am a large guy, six-three, two-fifty plus pounds.  Well this woman, while considerably shorter than me but she had me beat by at least fifty pounds.  If she wanted to just keep walking to my classroom there was not a thing I could have done to stop her.  I caught her coming back to the back of the school, where my room was, and tried to have her walk with me to the front.  She was having none of it and wanted to talk, loudly, right there in the middle of the school.

She started out by saying, "What are we gonna do about this?  I ain't gonna let this go!"
"OK, let's talk.  What is going on?"
"My boy is innocent.  I'm not going to stand for this!"
"Mrs. Oliver's mom...I can try to help but first I need to know what I am trying to do."
"You got to keep that hussy away from my boy!"
"I'm sorry.  Did you say hussy?  Someone at the school?"
"You know I did!  And I will have none of it!"
"OK, tell me what is going on."

"Hang on...I'm getting a call."
And then it happened.  In the movies some women have flirted by reaching coyly into their bra straps with their fingertips to get a business card.  There was just such a scene in True Lies where Tia Carrere toys with Arnold Schwarzenegger.  I have to say...it was interesting...from a male's point of view.  Ollie's mom is no Tia Carrere and she most definitely was not flirting and she didn't just use her fingertips.  This woman raised her hand straight up in the air, put her fingers together, and dove her hand into the neckline of her t-shirt to retrieve her phone.   Another thing that was different is that there was nothing coy about it.  Her hand disappeared, then her forearm, all the way up to her elbow!  It was one of those car crash moments.  Horrible but I didn't have the ability to look away.  She got her phone (bear in mind that this was a decade ago when cell phones were not the miniatures that they are today), explained to the caller that she was at the school, she had a problem with her son, that her son's teacher was clawing at his eyeballs with his fingernails, and then the phone went back! 

"Like I said, That hussy.  I'm gonna have none of it."
"OK, I heard that.  I'm not sure who we are talking about though."
Then she dove her hand again into her t-shirt and her, let's say, more than ample bosom to get the evidence.  This time there was a problem.  It wasn't just an in and out grab.  This time she had to root around.  It took forever...and not in a slow motion sort of way.  It really took her about a minute of searching...with one hand...and then she had to go to the alternate storage facility with her other hand.  The whole time I am imagining her saying to herself, 'no, no, no. ballpoint pen, wallet, keys, sandwich for later, spark plug, rental agreement, picture of the kids...in a frame'...and then she found what she was looking for.   She pulled out a piece of paper folded over several times...and handed it to me!  eww eww eww

It turns out that it was a note that Ollie had written to a girl in class but hadn't had the courage to give her.  I told her that it wasn't such a big deal, I would talk to him.  I walked her back up to the front of the school, explained that I needed to go back to the classroom so I could invent hand sanitizer and something new that I was working on called mental floss.  You know, to get unpleasant images out of your brain. 

There you go...the joys of teaching...now I need to go take a Silkwood shower.