How's that for an eye-catching title?
Actually, it's my entry in a six-word story contest at Jennsylvania, blog home of Jen Lancaster, author of Bitter is the New Black, Bright Lights Big Ass, My Fair Lazy, Such a Pretty Fat, Pretty in Plaid, and her new novel, If You Were Here. I have all of Jen's nonfiction/humor/memoir books, but I'm still on the fence about trying her novel.
If you would like to enter this contest, get on the stick! It ends at 9:00 a.m. CST April 1st.
My six-word story is actually nonfiction. Years ago, I offered one of my classes some gummi bears left over from a fundraiser. I felt obligated to buy something from my own kids, and then they up and declared that they didn't really like gummi bears all that much. So I took them to school as snacks for my students. The gummi bears, not the kids. That's crazy talk, offering young boys for cannibalization!
One of the students asked to put his gummi bears in my microwave, to alleviate the hardness. That's not a euphemism. The candy was stale, and he wanted it softened. I agreed, but only for ten seconds. He shook them out of the bag, onto a paper plate. The microwave dinged, and he sat down at his desk with his tasty treat.
I was reading out loud to them, my at-risk class, because they were loathe to read on their own valuable time, which was better used for trespassing on private property that they mistook for a haunted house, until the owner jumped out with a gun and called the police. They were chowing down on gummis, wrapping their brains around one of the Dive books, by Gordon Korman.
"I can't eat these. It's Mary, praying."
I motioned for the student to bring Mary to my desk. Indeed, I saw the resemblance. She was kneeling, a baby swaddled in her arms. After a short disagreement concerning the phone-picture-taking of The Virgin, the student returned to his seat, and I resumed reading. The entire episode is recounted here, on my super-secret other blog. It was not a favorable outcome for Mary.
Let's just say that I won't get rich by selling the gummi Virgin Mary on eBay.
Unbagging the Cats 1
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
My Life of Medication Hasn't Hurt Me None
By popular demand (okay, one person requested to read this story in a comment a couple of posts ago), I bring you my ninth-place winner from the Dead of Winter Nonfiction Contest at The Write Helper. If nothing else, it will give a plethora of writers the opportunity to feel superior. Like the homely girl accompanying her friends on a trip to the mall, my writing will make others look good by comparison. I'm providing a service, actually. A big ol' syringe of self-esteem to be injected intraocularly. And now, without further ado, my entry.
My Life of Medication Hasn't Hurt Me None
When you come down with a rash due to an allergic reaction to an antibiotic, the doctor really doesn’t want to see you. Or even give you an appointment. So the only alternative is to drop in and show the receptionist your spots.
The woman behind the window stopped hacking away at her computer and looked at me over the top of her glasses. I didn’t even have to tell her why I was there. "Oh, my. I'll see what we have." She told a pleasant little story about breaking out from a reaction to Cymbalta. Then one of the nurses passing by chimed in to say that she, too, had a reaction to Cymbalta. The last commercial I saw told me Cymbalta was an antidepressant. Perhaps my doctor’s office was not such pleasant place to work.
The window lady asked me if I would mind seeing Julie, the nurse practitioner, at 11:15. I looked at the clock. The current time was 10:00 a.m. "Sure. What else am I going to do, looking like this?"
At 10:15, they called me back to the inner sanctum. I knew better than to get excited. Ever since that time I waited until 6:00 to be seen for my 4:00 appointment, I have come prepared. I brought a Reader’s Digest this time. Because I have a thirst for knowledge.
A nurse who must have developed a tolerance to Cymbalta, judging from her smooth, non-rashy complexion, took my vitals. I gave her the details of my Cefprozil dosage for a sinus infection. I had been taking the Cefprozil as directed. On the ninth day of the ten-day prescription, I broke out with the bumpy red rash. The nurse had never heard of Cefprozil, so I gave her the bottle. She disappeared into the labyrinth of exam rooms.
Around 10:30, the nurse practitioner poked her head in the door. She looked like Dr. Susan Lewis from ER, only shorter, and with more than one facial expression. She inquired, "Stella?" I didn't know who Stella was, but I hoped she’d brought a Reader’s Digest. An unannounced stranger in a white coat accompanied Julie. They both stared. At Stella, they presumed.
"Noooo...I'm Val. With the rash."
Julie the Nurse Practitioner peered at me though her granny glasses, and said, "Ohh!" She possessed quite the repertoire of emotions for someone so similar to stone-faced Dr. Susan Lewis. In fact, her look of concern made me a bit nervous. You would think I had a football-sized goiter on the side of my neck like the senior citizen Elaine volunteered to help on Seinfeld. The one who dated Mohandas Gandhi. The Mahatma. I only had a bright red neck. And forearms. And shoulders and back, too, but I tried not to flaunt them to the public. Julie took the white-coated woman she was towing and left, saying she'd be back in a few minutes. Like I was going to believe that.
Several articles later, in the midst of Life in These United States, Julie poked her head back into the exam room. "Uh...we have three people ahead of you. Your appointment isn't actually until 11:15." Which in doctor-speak means: “You'll be lucky to see me by 12:00.”
I knew the drill. "That's okay. I didn't really have an appointment. They worked me in." Julie said she'd be back as soon as she could. The white-coated stranger remained mute.
I read some Humor in Uniform and scratched a little bitty bit. Julie returned around 11:30 with the mysterious white-coated woman. I wished Julie would introduce this silent partner who was about to become privy to my personal medical peccadilloes.
Contrary to her social skills, Julie’s bedside manner was adequate. She was thorough in going over the chart, asking me questions, and inspecting the rash in various places. She said she felt sure it was the Cefzil, which is what Cefprozil really is. Probably in its pure and non-generic incarnation, not as a cheap knockoff imported from a third-world country after being hand-pressed into pills by five-year-old orphans. Julie offered me a shot of Benadryl or a steroid.
Hey! Julie! I'm not a doctor, even though I watched one that looked like you on ER. Don't be giving me the choice, like it's a shot of liquor. Because in that case, I'd say, "Give me one of each." If I was a drinking woman, which I'm not. Now.
I asked which one worked better, and Julie said it didn't make much difference. I told her I had a 30-minute drive home, so she said I'd better not have the Benadryl, which could make me sleepy. You ain't a-woofin', Julie girl.
I had a shot of Benadryl in an emergency room many years ago, due to an allergic response to Ampicillin. The last thing I remember, I sat down on the passenger seat of the car, and my head toppled out the window. It felt like a balloon, but without the helium. It didn’t want to float. It wanted to roll down my right shoulder, pause for dramatic effect at my elbow, which was hanging out the car window, shout , “Look at MEEEE, everybody,” and then execute a swan dive (as good a swan dive as a balloon head with no arms or legs could execute), and skim like a skipping stone along the weedy U. S. Highway 60 right-of-way that the MODOT crews had neglected to mow. Benadryl was not my friend.
Julie took one more look at my spotted arms. She pulled a puzzled visage from her bag of expressions. One of the rashy blotches had taken the shape of a straight line. She said she was going to run it by one of the docs, and hauled her constant companion, White Coat, out of there.
After running a few laps around the building, arm-wrestling the other nurse practitioner, and having a rousing game of dominoes with the doctor over a Meat Lover's Pizza, Julie and White Coat came back. Julie had decided on a shot of whatchamacallit, which I assumed was steroidal in nature. She said a nurse was getting it ready. Just then, a woman hollered from down the hall, "Do we mix anything with that?" It took me a second to realize that the "EEEEEEE!" I heard was coming from my own vocal cords.
Julie assured me, "Oh, she means do we add a painkiller." Julie hollered back, "No. It's just the shot." She made a note on the chart about a Cefzil allergy, and said she hoped I got to feeling better, and that they'd keep me about ten minutes after the shot to see if I had a reaction to it. Then she and White Coat left to find bigger fish to fry.
The nurse came in with my shot and laid the syringe down on the counter. She also had a companion. I entertained thoughts of how on-schedule these people could be if they each worked on a patient instead of going in pairs. The nurse looked like she was right out of nursing school, having just injected countless oranges and her lab partner with saline solution. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Shooter said, "It has to go in your butt.” Her little white shadow nodded. I asked Shooter what I would feel like if I had a reaction to the shot. She said, "I don't know. Maybe you'll break out in red bumps." White Shadow snickered. Apparently, they were compiling material for All in a Day’s Work. Perhaps I would read their story on my next visit.
I asked if it would hurt, and Shooter said, "I don't know. It's a shot." She jabbed the needle into my gluteus maximus, which did not hurt, but then pushed the medicine in, which kindled a small fire in my nether regions.
I must have vocalized my displeasure, because White Shadow said, "Well, now I know that this burns when it goes in." I’m always pleased to assist in medical research.
Shooter put a band-aid on my new booboo, and then washed her hands. Quite a redeeming quality in a nurse. She told me I could go. I told her that Julie wanted me to wait ten minutes to see if I developed a reaction to the shot. This was news to Shooter, but she agreed, and closed the door as she and White Shadow left.
Lucky for me, and the doctor’s malpractice insurance, I didn't have a reaction to that shot. Nobody would have known until they needed that room after lunch time. I read some more Reader’s Digest. Twenty minutes passed. Nobody came to get me. I opened the door and saw the original nurse who took my vitals. At least she seemed embarrassed. "Oh. It's been way longer than ten minutes. Do you feel all right?"
I told her I was ready to leave, but I hadn't paid the copay yet. She took me up front. The two ladies working at that window said I didn't have to pay, because the computer showed I had a credit. That was news to me. A salesman with his whole torso through the window said, "I'll take her credit." I told him that the rash went with it. He declined. He must have been the Cymbalta supplier for the office.
I stepped into the elevator with the Pizza Hut delivery girl, who said the elevator was taking a long time. I told her that I'd been in the office over two hours, and I didn't think a few more minutes would make a difference. She said she had another load of pizza to bring up, and was in a hurry. I knew those folks were eating pizza instead of consulting! That little delivery gal was so pleasant, I almost gave her a tip. She didn't even stare at my red neck.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Santa Claus, G-Man, and Bob
Has anybody here, seen my old friend Saa-aanta? Can you tell me where he's gooo-ooo-ooo-ooone?
Santa Claus is missing.
He has been my faithful companion for several months, slumbering quietly in my top desk drawer, sleeping off his holiday indulgences. Oh, every now and then, I take him out to spread good cheer to assorted students. Some need his assistance on a daily basis. But until now, he has always returned to his oaken bunk after carrying out his designated duty. Until yesterday.
The overwhelming majority of students arrive in my classroom with necessary materials to facilitate maximum learning. Two, do not. They are in my more mature group, not so much in behavior as in years on this earth and grade level in school. These two politely request the use of a pencil, and promptly return it when finished.
Because I did not just fall off the yellow turnip bus, I know that often "loaning" a pencil is akin to "loaning" a tissue. The student asks to borrow it, but you're not getting it back. For that reason, if I deign to dole out a pencil, I make sure it's the most undesirable writing utensil ever to be grasped by a student's sweaty palm. The ratio of borrowers runs about twenty to one, boys to girls. I used to loan a hot pink pencil, but then those young whippersnappers got all metrosexual and real men wear pink on me, and that color was no longer a theft deterrent.
Santa Claus, and his dear friend Gingerbread Man, are popular on the paper, but not so much in the pocket. Like the biology text, *Bob, they are highly-prized in my classroom, but not outside its boundaries. Santa, G-Man, and Bob are starters in the regular rotation of supplies that are proffered in order to keep kids in the classroom during the daily game of I Forgot Something In My Locker.
I normally don't loan items to freshmen. A freshman is an unreliable borrower, with no credit record, no visible means of support, likely to leave town in the dead of night with my pencil strapped to the top of his four-wheeler, never to be seen again. So it was with some trepidation that I allowed Santa to assist a ninth-grader. I'm not sure what came over me. Perhaps it was the heady excitement, nearly palpable, of the very first day of the brand-spanking-new FOURTH QUARTER.
Like a Baby Jesus missing from the manger of a churchyard nativity scene, I fear that Santa is irretrievably, unequivocally, indisputably lost.
*Bob is an old biology textbook, not checked out to anybody. One of his past assignees wrote the name "Bob" on the closed pages opposite his spine. He resides alone on the battered wooden bookcase at the back of my classroom, waiting for the day his brethren are collected and stacked about him in a joyful last-day-of-school textbook reunion.
Santa Claus is missing.
He has been my faithful companion for several months, slumbering quietly in my top desk drawer, sleeping off his holiday indulgences. Oh, every now and then, I take him out to spread good cheer to assorted students. Some need his assistance on a daily basis. But until now, he has always returned to his oaken bunk after carrying out his designated duty. Until yesterday.
The overwhelming majority of students arrive in my classroom with necessary materials to facilitate maximum learning. Two, do not. They are in my more mature group, not so much in behavior as in years on this earth and grade level in school. These two politely request the use of a pencil, and promptly return it when finished.
Because I did not just fall off the yellow turnip bus, I know that often "loaning" a pencil is akin to "loaning" a tissue. The student asks to borrow it, but you're not getting it back. For that reason, if I deign to dole out a pencil, I make sure it's the most undesirable writing utensil ever to be grasped by a student's sweaty palm. The ratio of borrowers runs about twenty to one, boys to girls. I used to loan a hot pink pencil, but then those young whippersnappers got all metrosexual and real men wear pink on me, and that color was no longer a theft deterrent.
Santa Claus, and his dear friend Gingerbread Man, are popular on the paper, but not so much in the pocket. Like the biology text, *Bob, they are highly-prized in my classroom, but not outside its boundaries. Santa, G-Man, and Bob are starters in the regular rotation of supplies that are proffered in order to keep kids in the classroom during the daily game of I Forgot Something In My Locker.
I normally don't loan items to freshmen. A freshman is an unreliable borrower, with no credit record, no visible means of support, likely to leave town in the dead of night with my pencil strapped to the top of his four-wheeler, never to be seen again. So it was with some trepidation that I allowed Santa to assist a ninth-grader. I'm not sure what came over me. Perhaps it was the heady excitement, nearly palpable, of the very first day of the brand-spanking-new FOURTH QUARTER.
Like a Baby Jesus missing from the manger of a churchyard nativity scene, I fear that Santa is irretrievably, unequivocally, indisputably lost.
*Bob is an old biology textbook, not checked out to anybody. One of his past assignees wrote the name "Bob" on the closed pages opposite his spine. He resides alone on the battered wooden bookcase at the back of my classroom, waiting for the day his brethren are collected and stacked about him in a joyful last-day-of-school textbook reunion.
Monday, March 28, 2011
More Tootelage of My Own Horn
Oops! I did it again. I entered a contest, and I placed amongst the winners. I have only entered two contests. So I'm two for two.
On March 18, I placed FIRST in the Author! Author! Rings True writing competition. There were three divisions: Memoir, Freestyle (fiction that could fit in several categories), and Literary Fiction. Mine was memoir.
This time, I placed 9th in the Dead of Winter Nonfiction Contest at The Write Helper. It was a smaller contest, not quite as prestigious, and I barely made the top ten, but I did it, by cracky! I was in the top third. Not too shabby, considering some of these entries probably concerned weightier matters than my humorous memoir. It was open to memoir, essays, articles, and prose.
So...I think I might enter some more contests. Perhaps my recent success is an anomaly. Maybe I should try to shrink my enormous Easter Island head down to manageable proportions. While I'm at it, I can rest my shoulder that has grown sore from patting myself on the back. And slather some industrial-strength Chapstick on my lips made raw from tooting my own horn.
Who knew that this contest-placing business was so physically demanding?
On March 18, I placed FIRST in the Author! Author! Rings True writing competition. There were three divisions: Memoir, Freestyle (fiction that could fit in several categories), and Literary Fiction. Mine was memoir.
This time, I placed 9th in the Dead of Winter Nonfiction Contest at The Write Helper. It was a smaller contest, not quite as prestigious, and I barely made the top ten, but I did it, by cracky! I was in the top third. Not too shabby, considering some of these entries probably concerned weightier matters than my humorous memoir. It was open to memoir, essays, articles, and prose.
So...I think I might enter some more contests. Perhaps my recent success is an anomaly. Maybe I should try to shrink my enormous Easter Island head down to manageable proportions. While I'm at it, I can rest my shoulder that has grown sore from patting myself on the back. And slather some industrial-strength Chapstick on my lips made raw from tooting my own horn.
Who knew that this contest-placing business was so physically demanding?
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Val's Tasty Treats: The $300 Car
Another weekend has rolled around, and I'm about to let it get away without foisting an excerpt from my WIP on you. Please note that you dodged this bullet last weekend, and now it's time to face the music and take your medicine.
Today's tasty tidbit involves my husband's car-dealing skills. Hick wakes up in a brand new world every day. That's one of the things I love about him, how he has such a gusto for life, and sees the promise in things that my jaundiced eye would dismiss as junk. And now, your just dessert:
The $300 Car
Hick spotted the bargain on his way home from work, parked beside a mobile home just off our blacktop county road. It was a dark blue, two-door, 1996 Toyota Tercel. Written on the windshield with white shoe polish was the price: $400.
"It has to be a good car," said Hick, nearly breathless with excitement. "They've been driving it every day, but now I see that they have a truck, and the Toyota is for sale." Hick scans people's yards on a daily basis, mentally cataloging which items of their junk he can make his treasure. Because he was so pleased with his find, and because he needed a little car with better gas mileage than his Ford F250, I scrounged up $400 from my Hick Emergency Fund and sent him out to barter.
The minute Hick pulled into the driveway, a teenage boy came out of the trailer. "You can have it for $300," he said, before Hick was even out of his vehicle. "We got a truck, and now we need to get rid of this car." For me, that would have been a sign that perhaps this car was not a bargain. Twenty-five percent off the asking price before an offer was made. But I was not privy to this information until the deal was already done.
Hick came back home and grabbed a gas can, a sign that I might have construed as an omen. How good IS a car that won't run for the three-mile, downhill drive home? It had stopped at the row of mailboxes that marked the turnoff onto our gravel road. Fifteen minutes later, Hick arrived home, pulling the $300 car on his trailer. Strike three. The car didn't run, even after he put gas in it.
Hick thanked the teenage seller for his help in delivering the car, and drove him home. He then came to the house for our son, Genius, who was nine years old at the time. "Come help me with my new car." Genius skipped toward the barn with Hick, anticipation fairly oozing from his pores.
Five minutes later, Genius was back. He came running across the yard. "MOM! Dad caught the new car on fire. With ME in it!"
Here came Hick behind him, to do damage control. "I told him to sit in the car and push on the gas pedal while I shot ether into the engine. It blazed up a little bit, but I put it out with the fire extinguisher." He coaxed Genius back to the scene of the conflagration by promising him a ride if they got the car started.
A bit later, Hick and Genius pulled up in front of the house in the $300 car. By in front of the house, I mean front yard. Hick filled me in on the plan. "I'm going to drive it around the yard, so if it stops running, we'll be close to home." You can do that when you have ten acres. Genius struggled to put on a seatbelt. For a ride around the yard. In a $300 car.
Hick went back to the car, which he had left idling. It emitted so much black smoke that I could hardly breathe, even in the well-ventilated area of outside. After a couple of laps around the perimeter of the property, they returned. Genius got out. He had flecks of yellow-gold, crumbly material all across his back.
"What's that all over you?"
"Oh, that's part of the seat. It looks like someone locked a cat up in this car, and it clawed the seats trying to get out."
As I write this, the $300 car is parked by the barn, with two flat tires. It has been upgraded from Toyota Tercel seats to seats from a Porsche. You don't see that very often. Someone at work was going to throw away two perfectly good Porsche seats, so Hick volunteered to get rid of them for him. We still have the cat-scratch seats under the lean-to on the side of the barn.
Because you never know when you might need some junky seats from a 1996 Toyota Tercel.
Today's tasty tidbit involves my husband's car-dealing skills. Hick wakes up in a brand new world every day. That's one of the things I love about him, how he has such a gusto for life, and sees the promise in things that my jaundiced eye would dismiss as junk. And now, your just dessert:
The $300 Car
Hick spotted the bargain on his way home from work, parked beside a mobile home just off our blacktop county road. It was a dark blue, two-door, 1996 Toyota Tercel. Written on the windshield with white shoe polish was the price: $400.
"It has to be a good car," said Hick, nearly breathless with excitement. "They've been driving it every day, but now I see that they have a truck, and the Toyota is for sale." Hick scans people's yards on a daily basis, mentally cataloging which items of their junk he can make his treasure. Because he was so pleased with his find, and because he needed a little car with better gas mileage than his Ford F250, I scrounged up $400 from my Hick Emergency Fund and sent him out to barter.
The minute Hick pulled into the driveway, a teenage boy came out of the trailer. "You can have it for $300," he said, before Hick was even out of his vehicle. "We got a truck, and now we need to get rid of this car." For me, that would have been a sign that perhaps this car was not a bargain. Twenty-five percent off the asking price before an offer was made. But I was not privy to this information until the deal was already done.
Hick came back home and grabbed a gas can, a sign that I might have construed as an omen. How good IS a car that won't run for the three-mile, downhill drive home? It had stopped at the row of mailboxes that marked the turnoff onto our gravel road. Fifteen minutes later, Hick arrived home, pulling the $300 car on his trailer. Strike three. The car didn't run, even after he put gas in it.
Hick thanked the teenage seller for his help in delivering the car, and drove him home. He then came to the house for our son, Genius, who was nine years old at the time. "Come help me with my new car." Genius skipped toward the barn with Hick, anticipation fairly oozing from his pores.
Five minutes later, Genius was back. He came running across the yard. "MOM! Dad caught the new car on fire. With ME in it!"
Here came Hick behind him, to do damage control. "I told him to sit in the car and push on the gas pedal while I shot ether into the engine. It blazed up a little bit, but I put it out with the fire extinguisher." He coaxed Genius back to the scene of the conflagration by promising him a ride if they got the car started.
A bit later, Hick and Genius pulled up in front of the house in the $300 car. By in front of the house, I mean front yard. Hick filled me in on the plan. "I'm going to drive it around the yard, so if it stops running, we'll be close to home." You can do that when you have ten acres. Genius struggled to put on a seatbelt. For a ride around the yard. In a $300 car.
Hick went back to the car, which he had left idling. It emitted so much black smoke that I could hardly breathe, even in the well-ventilated area of outside. After a couple of laps around the perimeter of the property, they returned. Genius got out. He had flecks of yellow-gold, crumbly material all across his back.
"What's that all over you?"
"Oh, that's part of the seat. It looks like someone locked a cat up in this car, and it clawed the seats trying to get out."
As I write this, the $300 car is parked by the barn, with two flat tires. It has been upgraded from Toyota Tercel seats to seats from a Porsche. You don't see that very often. Someone at work was going to throw away two perfectly good Porsche seats, so Hick volunteered to get rid of them for him. We still have the cat-scratch seats under the lean-to on the side of the barn.
Because you never know when you might need some junky seats from a 1996 Toyota Tercel.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Sonic Unhappy Hour
I was not happy when my Sonic changed Happy Hour a couple of years ago. It used to be from 3:00 to 5:00. Never mind that technically, it was Happy Two-Hours. That time was perfect for allowing me to tie up my after-school loose ends, and still stop by Sonic in a timely manner on the way home.
This 2:00 to 4:00 Happy Hour is inconvenient. I always miss it by ten or fifteen minutes. So I curtailed my habitual afternoon beverage treat to two per week. I find $2.05 a bit steep for a Route 44 Diet Coke with lime. Gas is cheaper than that. Not that I want to drink it over those enchanting Sonic ice pellets.
Sonic Unhappy Hour is the hour directly after Happy Hour. The workers are still in the cheap soda mode. They fill the cup with ice, and shoehorn in a bit of soda. And you pay full price for it! If I'm going to shell out $2.05 for a soda, I at least expect to get some soda. I don't think that's unreasonable.
Thursday, the window gal handed me my magical elixir. I was pleased, because I could see limes in the top. Occasionally, they forget. There was one unfortunate citrus faux pas in which I was given lemons, but usually, I get a whole lime, cut into four wedges.
I never drink my keg of carbonated nectar until I get home and squeeze the juice out of the limes. Thursday, I had only three wedges. Each wedge was half a fourth. That's an eighth for those of you who don't do math. To make up for the shortage of lime, the gal had added extra ice. And then didn't even have the common decency to top off the styrofoam cup with soda. So when I scooped out my munchkin citrus sections, I saw that the level of ice and soda stood at about three-fourths of the cup. I had paid $2.05 for three-fourths of a cup of ice, a dash of Diet Coke, and three-eighths of a lime! That's highway robbery!
I'm not a person who looks at the glass as half full. I challenge one of those namby-pamby, unicorn-loving, every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining, walking-on-air, head-in-the-clouds eternal optimists to pay $2.05 for a soda, open it up to see what I saw, and declare, "Oh, look! My glass is half-full!"
They might also expect to buy gas station chicken from a woman who has all of her teeth.
This 2:00 to 4:00 Happy Hour is inconvenient. I always miss it by ten or fifteen minutes. So I curtailed my habitual afternoon beverage treat to two per week. I find $2.05 a bit steep for a Route 44 Diet Coke with lime. Gas is cheaper than that. Not that I want to drink it over those enchanting Sonic ice pellets.
Sonic Unhappy Hour is the hour directly after Happy Hour. The workers are still in the cheap soda mode. They fill the cup with ice, and shoehorn in a bit of soda. And you pay full price for it! If I'm going to shell out $2.05 for a soda, I at least expect to get some soda. I don't think that's unreasonable.
Thursday, the window gal handed me my magical elixir. I was pleased, because I could see limes in the top. Occasionally, they forget. There was one unfortunate citrus faux pas in which I was given lemons, but usually, I get a whole lime, cut into four wedges.
I never drink my keg of carbonated nectar until I get home and squeeze the juice out of the limes. Thursday, I had only three wedges. Each wedge was half a fourth. That's an eighth for those of you who don't do math. To make up for the shortage of lime, the gal had added extra ice. And then didn't even have the common decency to top off the styrofoam cup with soda. So when I scooped out my munchkin citrus sections, I saw that the level of ice and soda stood at about three-fourths of the cup. I had paid $2.05 for three-fourths of a cup of ice, a dash of Diet Coke, and three-eighths of a lime! That's highway robbery!
I'm not a person who looks at the glass as half full. I challenge one of those namby-pamby, unicorn-loving, every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining, walking-on-air, head-in-the-clouds eternal optimists to pay $2.05 for a soda, open it up to see what I saw, and declare, "Oh, look! My glass is half-full!"
They might also expect to buy gas station chicken from a woman who has all of her teeth.
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Conversationalist
I spent the day cooling my heels at a local science fair. My little team came home with a 1st Place record of 67%. Just think, if they were all rolled into one baseball player, they would be batting .667. Not too shabby. But I'm not here to brag about their scientific methodology. I'm here to relate a tale of what happens when teachers stop teaching school, and start interacting in the real world.
First cat out of the bag, I was accosted by a clinger. I sent my students on the bus with another teacher, and got to the college early to stake out our spot. I felt like Elaine saving movie seats. "Taken. That's taken. Taken!" The science fair is held in a field house, with participants set up on the gym floor. The bottom section of bleachers are folded up, and off limits. We take the front row of the upper section, the walk-around section. I put down my son's project board and wooden tray of cups full of nails. I set down my bag full of glue and paper and pencils and water and bifocals. I spread out my coat. I laid down my wet umbrella. I figured I had the whole section covered, from the wall to the first set of steps.
But no. I did not even have a chance to sit down in the middle of my barriers before Clingy appeared. I am not a very nice person. I'm sure she was just trying to be friendly. However, it's not my job to nurture the fragile self-esteem of strangers. My students, yes. I AM paid for that. But this was not my student.
The initial greeting went a little something like this:
"I didn't bring my wheelchair today."
"Mmm."
"I always sit here. So I can put my back against the wall."
"Mmm."
"We brought two buses. I couldn't believe the school told the parents they had to bring their kids."
"Mmm."
"They had the nerve to say that if the kids weren't there by 7:30, the bus would leave without them. A lot of parents can't get them there by then. They work."
"Mmm."
"That's our kids lined up. We brought two buses."
"Our bus isn't here yet. Oh, there's my son."
"My daughter is here. I brought some sewing to work on. She lost her junior jacket that had a bunch of letters on it that need to be transferred. So I'm sewing them on."
"Mmm."
A director came up the steps, and hollered down that participants might want to get a chair off the racks in the corners of the gym. Clingy asked, "Can I get a chair?" Not with the inflection that she wanted to walk down the steps and get one, but with the inflection that she wanted somebody to bring her a chair. The director gave her a blank stare. Clingy sat down sideways on the bleacher, with her back against the wall. I saw a colleague walk in behind Clingy's line of vision. Clingy continued her soliloquy. "I have one child here, but about five of them will call me Mom. I've been the director of their scout troop all along. That girl there with my daughter is her best friend. She split her head open in daycare, and the next day sent her to the hospital."
Colleague rolled her eyes. "Don't we want to sit farther down this year? People will walk in and stand in front of us."
I started gathering my stuff. "That's right! Help me carry some of this. Let's go over a section, right in the middle."
Clingy's jaw dropped. How dare her new best friends/captive audience high-tail it out of hearing distance! We made a big show of rearranging our stuff, checking out our viewing angle, pantomiming picture-taking toward the awards table. It's not that we were being mean on purpose. You can only take so much. And this lady was not getting the hint. At least a student will eventually get the message that you're just not interested in chatting at that moment. But not Clingy.
I don't know how else to have handled it, but then again, I am not a people person. I might have said, point blank, "Ma'am, I am not interested in talking right now. I am looking to see if my students are checking in. I can not do two things at once. In a few minutes, I would like to read the book I have brought along to pass the time." That seems rude. Now I know why people complain about being trapped next to a Chatty Cathy on a plane. It's hard enough to worry every minute so that plane doesn't go down, without also humoring a non-stop conversationalist.
Your right to talk does not take away my right to not-listen.
First cat out of the bag, I was accosted by a clinger. I sent my students on the bus with another teacher, and got to the college early to stake out our spot. I felt like Elaine saving movie seats. "Taken. That's taken. Taken!" The science fair is held in a field house, with participants set up on the gym floor. The bottom section of bleachers are folded up, and off limits. We take the front row of the upper section, the walk-around section. I put down my son's project board and wooden tray of cups full of nails. I set down my bag full of glue and paper and pencils and water and bifocals. I spread out my coat. I laid down my wet umbrella. I figured I had the whole section covered, from the wall to the first set of steps.
But no. I did not even have a chance to sit down in the middle of my barriers before Clingy appeared. I am not a very nice person. I'm sure she was just trying to be friendly. However, it's not my job to nurture the fragile self-esteem of strangers. My students, yes. I AM paid for that. But this was not my student.
The initial greeting went a little something like this:
"I didn't bring my wheelchair today."
"Mmm."
"I always sit here. So I can put my back against the wall."
"Mmm."
"We brought two buses. I couldn't believe the school told the parents they had to bring their kids."
"Mmm."
"They had the nerve to say that if the kids weren't there by 7:30, the bus would leave without them. A lot of parents can't get them there by then. They work."
"Mmm."
"That's our kids lined up. We brought two buses."
"Our bus isn't here yet. Oh, there's my son."
"My daughter is here. I brought some sewing to work on. She lost her junior jacket that had a bunch of letters on it that need to be transferred. So I'm sewing them on."
"Mmm."
A director came up the steps, and hollered down that participants might want to get a chair off the racks in the corners of the gym. Clingy asked, "Can I get a chair?" Not with the inflection that she wanted to walk down the steps and get one, but with the inflection that she wanted somebody to bring her a chair. The director gave her a blank stare. Clingy sat down sideways on the bleacher, with her back against the wall. I saw a colleague walk in behind Clingy's line of vision. Clingy continued her soliloquy. "I have one child here, but about five of them will call me Mom. I've been the director of their scout troop all along. That girl there with my daughter is her best friend. She split her head open in daycare, and the next day sent her to the hospital."
Colleague rolled her eyes. "Don't we want to sit farther down this year? People will walk in and stand in front of us."
I started gathering my stuff. "That's right! Help me carry some of this. Let's go over a section, right in the middle."
Clingy's jaw dropped. How dare her new best friends/captive audience high-tail it out of hearing distance! We made a big show of rearranging our stuff, checking out our viewing angle, pantomiming picture-taking toward the awards table. It's not that we were being mean on purpose. You can only take so much. And this lady was not getting the hint. At least a student will eventually get the message that you're just not interested in chatting at that moment. But not Clingy.
I don't know how else to have handled it, but then again, I am not a people person. I might have said, point blank, "Ma'am, I am not interested in talking right now. I am looking to see if my students are checking in. I can not do two things at once. In a few minutes, I would like to read the book I have brought along to pass the time." That seems rude. Now I know why people complain about being trapped next to a Chatty Cathy on a plane. It's hard enough to worry every minute so that plane doesn't go down, without also humoring a non-stop conversationalist.
Your right to talk does not take away my right to not-listen.
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