A Really Bad Day at the Five and Ten

No, I never actually got caught naked on Main Street wearing only a teddy bear in front of the Ben Franklin Dime Store.  Thank goodness for that.  But believe me, today was almost as bad as that.  (Really, I just made up this picture to illustrate a bad day.  It didn’t actually ever happen.  I know it sounds like I am protesting too much, but… oh, well.  Some of my friends know the truth.)

Today started with a near fatal accident on my morning commute.  I have been having trouble on the drive in the mornings, passing out at stop lights on occasion and having to be awakened by angry car horns.  I am a diabetic and I did discuss it with my doctor and my mother the forty-year RN nurse.  I have been eating extra protein for breakfast to keep my blood sugar high enough.  Still, I had a sudden rude awakening.  I was going forty miles an hour as I was awakened by the car rumbling down the median on a divided portion of the highway.  I got control of the car and veered back into my lane before I reached the light pole or the up-coming intersection.  Believe me, I am going to take super serious steps to prevent that looming fatal accident.  If I don’t, I will either end up dead or having to work with severely soiled underwear.  No way can I afford another sick day.

So, after the good news about still not being dead, I was called into the vice principal’s office.

“Did they tell you that you were going to be having a new writing class?” he said out of the blue beyond.

“No.”

“You can teach a writing class, can’t you?”

Well, of course I can.  I have done it a million times before.  It is just that I never had to do it suddenly in the middle of a grading period before.  So what is going on here?  “Um, yes, I can,” I answered with the utter stupidity of the totally blind-sided.

“Good.  We will be replacing your third period class today.”

Oh, good.  Thank you so much.  Why am I being singled out for this kind of treatment?  Well, I am eligible to retire.  They want me to retire.  And my department is not only made up of gray-haired old fogies like me, but is being blamed for low test scores.  (Of course, no one seems to notice that the scores I am routinely blamed for are second language speakers of English who have been mainstreamed in regular English classes.  Why am I to blame for failures of kids who are not directly in my classes?  Oh, that’s right… ESL teachers take the blame for ESL students whether we’re allowed to teach them or not.)  Okay, bring it on!  No way I’m gonna let kids fail, even if they are heaping it on to drive me out.

My blood sugar went too low again before the end of the day.  All three of my own personal kids are failing at least one class.  I am getting older by the minute.  When I stop and think about it, it would be better to be a kid again, caught naked in front of the Five and Ten.  (You might want to check out my previous post “Because Naked is Funny” to find out why.)  It would be, all-in-all, a much better time.  (And it didn’t really happen.  Well… not like the Paffooney, anyway!