Two Bits

Theme of the day was quarters.

Today they announce that our campus Teacher of the Year was getting a limo ride to eat lunch at a nice restaurant with her entire grade-level team. Since I had nominated my entire team, and they had declined, I got PO'd at them and told them that they were dumba$$es and had blown it for all of us. Baloney told us that the T.O.Y. had invited her to go with them because she was going to be in their grade level next year. I told Baloney that if she had gone I would have kicked her a$$ right there in front of the school and I would charge the kids 25 cents to watch, with all the proceeds going to the Relay for Life fundraiser drive.

After school, Felix and I were sitting in the office waiting on SubFriend to call us back and decide where we were going to go "unwind" for the evening. In walks a mom and a new 3rd grade student. I KNOW. A week before school is out. Since I only have 16 kids in my class, we knew I would get him, so we eavesdropped in between listening to my MP3 player and singing Elvis songs. Good cow! His name is Angel. Here's the thing about kids named Angel and Jesus -- they never are. So they are getting ready to place him in a class and Striptease comes out and asks me how many students I had in my class right now. I said 19. I'm a liar - it's funny to me. Felix interjected immediately that I was a liar.

In the meanitime, there are 2 or 3 little urchins whose parents had "forgotten" to pick them up on time. And they were on my nerves because I needed a drink and SubFriend still hadn't called us and there is no vodka at school. (I've looked) One of them got picked up, there was another one who was being really good and I gave him a quarter. Then there was the third kid. I will get this child when he gets to 3rd grade because that's the kind of little urchin they put in my class for me to "fix." And he was eating BBQ pringles and crawling around and making me insane.

Felix watched in awe as I launched into my typical it's-my-time-off-and-I-don't-like-children-during-my-time-off attitude. I said, "Little boy, what is your name?" And he told me. And I said, "Ok, I have a quarter here..." Up jumps the lad. "Now, wait. This is for you if you can sit there and be completely quiet until someone comes to get you because I've had a long week and I don't need noise right now." And I laid it on the table beside my chair - and lo and behold, he shut up. And sat still. And the principal came in and asked him a question and all he did was nod vigorously. Principal asked me what was going on and I told him I had bribed the little darling with a quarter - and pointed to the quarter on the table. Principal died laughing and told me that it was a big stretch for this particular kid, and started asking him all kinds of questions to mess with him. Good times, good times.