Edubabble and other Blither

I have a new rule at school. No eating while working. I've decided it's the main reason for my teacher-spread. Even the federal government is getting involved. (I must really have a problem....)

My superintendent puts it this way: "We have to make sure they are nice to each other, don't have sex, don't drink, don't do drugs, know how to drive, don't offend anyone, and now it's our fault that they're fat."

But seriously, when I think back to my junior high years (yuck), I remember no pizza parties, no end-of-the-year parties, no treats to go along with units: Kuchen when reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Christmas Pudding for A Christmas Carol. My teachers never brought treats for tests, for homeroom, for Halloween. My school sure does that now. I'm guilty.

I don't remember so much fundraising, either: hoagies, candy, popcorn, frozen pizzas, cookie dough. Tripper and I disagree about fundraising: he, and many, many others, thinks kids should have to do something to raise money for their activities. He doesn't care for "tagging", that practice of panhandling outside of businesses. I can understand this; it's a logical statement. I'd rather, though, hand over a couple of bucks to kids outside of the grocery store than buy any other junk, edible or other. I don't want candles, knick-knacks, wrapping paper, kitchen gadgets that don't work. I don't want any of it.

While I'm at it-- I'm tired of my colleagues bringing in their kids' fundraisers, too. If I don't have kids, I'll get none of it back. On Sex and the City, Carrie once bemoaned weddings and showers in the same way. She wondered if she could have a shower for herself. Can I sell hoagies to benefit a trip to see Professor Girl and the River Pirate??? Don't I deserve that as much as some athlete deserves to go to Australia to play football?

While I'm still at it-- ladies, get a real job and stop these ridiculous direct-vendor parties: candles, Home Interiors, Pampered Chef, Jafra, Batteries Not Included, Home and Garden, you get the picture. If you have to prey upon your friends, how great are your products?? If you need extra money, quit going to these parties and buying fundraiser items.

I recently went to one of these with a friend. She knew I had made a resolution to just say no, but she begged me. She felt obligated to go since it was hosted by friends of her husband, but she wasn't going to know anyone there. I felt obligated to go with her because every time she's at my house, she has to change the toilet paper roll and fill the ice cube trays. I went. The demonstrator, a school librarian, was the chirpiest woman I'd met in awhile. I guess she can be chirpy, since all she does all day is say, "Shh."

"Who brought their assigned items?" she sang. I hadn't seen an actual invitation, so I didn't know I had homework.

"I'll give you Garden Cash for each item you can whip out of your purse! Does anyone have... a pen? a grocery receipt? a tampon? a picture on your cell phone? a reminder card for a doctor's appointment? some tweezers? dental floss?"

I was hoping the next request was a gun so I could kill myself. On and on it went. (What did we get with this money at the end of the night? The opportunity to bid on a Hershey bar and some ugly Christmas figurines.)

She next gave a little info about the company. "Home and Garden is a Christian company," strike one "started in Texas" strike two. I think my eyes started to glaze over at that point.

One interesting (to me only) part of the "party" was its location, the home of a former student and her family: husband and two cute little boys. (PG, she was a student that year you visited me and spoke at that high school class. Remember, the one boy spoke to you at length, and you answered, "Pardon me???" because you had no idea what he'd said? I think he said something like, "Soyou'reMissSnow's'friendthatshe'sknownforevertheonewhoisawriter?")

I bought a couple things-- a cookbook stand and some candles. I left with only my new resolutions: Don't eat while working, and stop going to these parties.

Last week a college roommate of mine made a pit stop on her way to visit family a couple of hours north. She has two sons, a three year old and a three month old. Tripper and I sometimes worry about the older of the two. There’s just something not right with John. He doesn’t really talk a lot, just repeats things you say to him. He’s prone to tantrums, at least when I see him. Last night he sat on my couch next to me and bounced as high as he could, smacking one of my plants on his way down. Surprisingly, his mother Jeannette didn’t say much. I was relieved when she didn’t take offense to my correcting him. Fifteen times or so.

“We jump on the floor, John.”

“We sit on the couch, John.”

I was trying to use positive phrasing, to no avail. I spoke firmly, made eye contact, took away the toys he employed in the abuse of my philodendron. Eventually we communicated, and he sat beside me, calmly looking at one of Tripper’s Cabela’s catalogs.

I’ve seen Jeannette take John to task when necessary, but that was before child number two. She just doesn’t seem to have the energy for it anymore, and with a husband sick with some pretty aggressive MS, I can’t blame her.

I don’t have the energy for it, either. When the abovementioned battle of wills was waged, I was praying for bed. It was around ten o’clock, and I still wasn’t acclimated to school-time. Tripper didn’t relish being left to entertain Jeannette and John, so I waited for them to go to bed. When did people stop putting their children to bed?

“Mine goes to bed at 7,” announced Amy, the science teacher, when I whined about it the next day at school. She has a two year old. “Last year it was 6:30.” Unfortunately, Amy was not visiting us.

Maybe I’m being given these chances to be nice so I can change my karma.

Jeannette lived with me for almost two years. She was a friend of a friend, and we needed a roommate to replace Mama Cass, who’d graduated and sailed off to save drug addicts. Jeannette got along well enough with the rest of us, and we had fun. We had fun even though she liked to hide her food or leave nasty notes after suspecting you’d broken into her dip one too many times. Jeri, get your own goddamn salsa! We had a lot of fun even though some of my other friends were afraid she’d live with me forever, following me wherever I got a job. We got along even after she confessed to referring to me in the dorm as “that dumb blonde bitch who fell down drunk and broke her foot.”

I may be painting too harsh a picture of Jeannette, though. I was not so easy to live with, myself. I once chased her around the apartment with one of my boogers. I was high, and it was so much fun! I dove into her Tostitos after picking the blister on my toe. I fucked my boyfriend on her bed, resulting in a discoloration of her new baby-blue cotton blanket. Which I replaced. Only after her tirade. (Of course, I do believe she was angrier more because this boyfriend was a complete boob-- with blonde pubic hair on his head-- than because of the act itself.)

It was Jeannette who personally threatened to punch the “big accounting nose” of a some-time booty-caller (Tripper’s roommate, actually) whom I permitted to string me along for three years. Jeannette was the one I woke up from a perfectly blissful Saturday afternoon nap to accompany me to lunch with my dad and his new girlfriend. Jeannette first heard my drunken proclamation that someday Jeri was going to break up with Tripper, I knew it, and we were going to end up together.

In fact, Jeannette’s the only college friend I keep in touch with. Besides Professor Girl, whom no one can beat for longevity, she’s one of my oldest friends now. If she still speaks to me after some of my youthful condescensions, indiscretions, and aggravations, who am I to complain about a three year old?

Upon their return trip last night, young John was a different man. Maybe I’m just becoming one of “those people” who don’t have kids, who are rigid, selfish, and unrealistic. Maybe Johnny should chase me with a booger.

School started out fine this year. I think I'll go back. I'm getting older, though. This year will be the first that I've been teaching as long as my students have been ALIVE.

I love when I have all the kids in a family. In fact, I feel cheated if there's four in a family, and I've gotten only three of them. Damn.

Sherry is the third Abdul kid I've had. Her older sibs passed their time with me, too. All three are blonde and blue-eyed. I don't where the Abdul comes in. When I asked Sherry if she was Constance and Miles' sister, she lit up. "Yes!" she said. "Did you have them? Connie's having a baby!"

"Oh, really?" I asked. I wasn't surprised.

Sherry went on. "Yeah, my parents were really upset, but they've gotten used to the idea. She'll almost be graduated from high school when the baby comes."

"Well," I offered, "my mom was pretty young when she had me. I turned out okay. It'll be hard, but it's not the end of the world."

Sherry's friend Vicky then addressed me, head cocked to one side, eyes full of the concern you see when watching a commercial about dealing with adult incontinence: "Is she still alive?"

"Uh, yes," I answered.

"Is she still active?" Vicky pressed on, head cocked to the other side.

"Yeah, she is? She'll be 54 this fall?" I continued.

How the fuck old am I to these kids that they don't think my parents can be ALIVE?

Yes, it's a brave new world.