It's Hard to Remain Clam
Life of the Big is these days good. The glittery disco fiasco of Big's technicolor history is receding into the cinematic darkness of the past, and life in the witness protection program is full of farts and smirks, turds and guffaws, emissions and hollaring.
Work is... hard to conceive of as "work" in the traditional sense. Teaching kids is
too amusing to be in the same category with cleaning cable, tipping trucks, and fighting monsters from alternate universes. By way of example, take John. I'll use his actual English name, since it's not his actual ACTUAL name, and is a general enough name to keep him relatively safe from public ridicule. But don't confuse him with the other John, who spelled stupid with two O's and an F.
John is a skinny, pale kid who is habitually tired and looks to be on the point of collapse. The one thing that brightens John's face is snails. Big isn't joking around. John is the benefactor and caretaker and all-around god of two pet snails. His best friend (who shall remain nameless) also raises snails.
I first heard about John's molluskoid enthusiasm when I asked him how he was doing one day. As per usual John raised his small skull slightly from the desk, exherting tremendous amounts of energy to do so, and replied, "Bad", before letting his cranium settle heavily onto the desk again.
As per routine, I asked, "Why are you a bad person, John?"
John sat up with a sigh and searched the heavens for a multi-word response to get me off his case. Then suddenly his jaw dropped, he looked at me, and perhaps for the first time since I'd met him, I saw the whites of John's eyes.
"No! Wait! I'm GOOD!"
"How good, John?"
"Very, very good! My snail is eat lettuce!"
It's these little surprises that keep the work fresh for me. My job is to empower children to confuse the hell out of people, and that suits me just fine. I corrected John's grammar, relishing the existential irony in doing so.
A week later, John was looking more or less the same. I asked, "How are the snails?", thanking providence for the unique opportunity to do so and taking a sip of green tea to keep me sharp.
I was once again gifted with the unexpected. John let out an angry sigh and gritted his teeth slightly.
"My snails is eat paper"
I nearly lost my tea.
It turns out John had used a desk calendar to shade his snails from an insurgent sunbeam. The little buggers had coincidentally sampled last December and found it irresitably delicious. One completely consumed Christmas Day, while the other devoured New Year's Eve.
And now for something completely different, a little more weird, and definitely more stoofid:
When you come across something like this, it is hard to remain clam and refrain from contemplating people's ignorance.
Work is... hard to conceive of as "work" in the traditional sense. Teaching kids is
too amusing to be in the same category with cleaning cable, tipping trucks, and fighting monsters from alternate universes. By way of example, take John. I'll use his actual English name, since it's not his actual ACTUAL name, and is a general enough name to keep him relatively safe from public ridicule. But don't confuse him with the other John, who spelled stupid with two O's and an F.
John is a skinny, pale kid who is habitually tired and looks to be on the point of collapse. The one thing that brightens John's face is snails. Big isn't joking around. John is the benefactor and caretaker and all-around god of two pet snails. His best friend (who shall remain nameless) also raises snails.
I first heard about John's molluskoid enthusiasm when I asked him how he was doing one day. As per usual John raised his small skull slightly from the desk, exherting tremendous amounts of energy to do so, and replied, "Bad", before letting his cranium settle heavily onto the desk again.
As per routine, I asked, "Why are you a bad person, John?"
John sat up with a sigh and searched the heavens for a multi-word response to get me off his case. Then suddenly his jaw dropped, he looked at me, and perhaps for the first time since I'd met him, I saw the whites of John's eyes.
"No! Wait! I'm GOOD!"
"How good, John?"
"Very, very good! My snail is eat lettuce!"
It's these little surprises that keep the work fresh for me. My job is to empower children to confuse the hell out of people, and that suits me just fine. I corrected John's grammar, relishing the existential irony in doing so.
A week later, John was looking more or less the same. I asked, "How are the snails?", thanking providence for the unique opportunity to do so and taking a sip of green tea to keep me sharp.
I was once again gifted with the unexpected. John let out an angry sigh and gritted his teeth slightly.
"My snails is eat paper"
I nearly lost my tea.
It turns out John had used a desk calendar to shade his snails from an insurgent sunbeam. The little buggers had coincidentally sampled last December and found it irresitably delicious. One completely consumed Christmas Day, while the other devoured New Year's Eve.
And now for something completely different, a little more weird, and definitely more stoofid:
When you come across something like this, it is hard to remain clam and refrain from contemplating people's ignorance.
posted by Mr. Matthews at 12:22 PM
1 Comments:
Woo, I love ya, but you're kind of stoofid. As a fellow teacher and grammer-phile, I have to say these little shits make me cringe at times. Yet I see and hear shit like this and crack up.
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