I hadn’t been having such a hot week. Too little sleep, not enough time for personal projects, a car in the shop for allegedly leaking oil, and uncertainty about how I would keep our tiny yard mowed this summer (our reel mower is dully kaput) were leaving me grumpy, and I found myself taking it out on students.
But today, my spirits changed. In first period, a teacher sprang into my room with her bucket of reward candy, looking for the color-of-the-day wearers, in vain.
“There’s no one here, Mr. Jacobs,” she complained at my full classroom of unspirited students. She’s old enough to be my mom, and she was drinking coffee from a Dunkin’ Donuts cup.
“We‘re here!” a student protested.
“You don’t count,” she fired back.
Now, I must explain that this is Mrs. Generous Herself’s common demeanor. “Aw, Mr. Jacobs,” she always moans as if in great agony, whenever she sees me. But it’s in fun, all of it. After all, she is the coordinator of our sunshine club; she’s responsible for putting together the school’s many baby showers (that’s where N got her car seat and much more).
Somehow, it appears, she has connected me with cans of mixed nuts, because whenever I RSVP to any sort of upcoming sunshine club event, she accusatorily replies, “You’d better come–how else are we going to have mixed nuts?” She herself generally makes homemade cakes for the parties–wonderful pound cakes, carrot cakes, and other delights. And this picture of N shows the blanket that Mrs. Generous Herself made for her.
So I didn’t mind her interruption. Instead, I merrily scolded her and told her to bring me coffee next time she barged in–and a donut wouldn’t be unwelcome, either.
Later in the morning, I wrote this email to M: “I hope you’re having a good day. Apparently the car is ready…I guess they just needed to tighten the seals; they didn’t say anything on the message. This morning [Mrs. Generous Herself] came into my room to check for the colors of the day, and made a big fuss about interrupting me. She was drinking Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. I told her she can come back again when she brings me coffee and a donut. She was back in about an hour–with a coffee and donut for me. Yippee! My second period was mad that I ate it in front of them. Now I’m typing so fast that my wrists hurt.”
Actually, I tried to be nice to my students by ducking my head under my podium before taking a bite of donut, but they still wailed, one girl something about her “tummy.”
The coffee did the trick, and gave me a much-needed kick.
After forgetting to attach a promised attachment in an email to my team, Old Fart wrote back, “Attachment? Attachment? We don’t need no stinking attachment.” Referring to an earlier email of his in which he had promised an upcoming variety of vegetable plant starts but emphatically stated that orders would not be taken before May 1, I replied, “Sorry, attachment disorders will not be accepted until after May 1.”
Even at the beginning of my planning period, the last period of the day, I was still kicking. I called in one of my gifted and talented students who had been showing off her “beach bum” artwork the other day. I’d confiscated her art notebook, which also contained a few other inappropriate works.
“Look,” I told her. “You’re a good artist, and you’re probably more aware than most students of what’s going on in the world.” I went on, teary eyed at my eloquence, to say that she should use her art as social commentary.
Before leaving for home, I emailed a thank-you to Mrs. Generous Herself: “Thanks tons for the coffee and donut! They provided the kick that improved my day gloriously!” She couldn’t resist replying, “You kicked kids today?? Good for you!!”
After I retrieved the car from the shop (with its new oil plug washer and new oil–all for no charge, since they’d done my last oil change) and sputtered home, I was still kicking. M and I decided to take N for a walk in the park. We drove to a nearby plaza, parked the car and shopped at the drugstore, and then crossed the parking lot to the hardware store.
We love hardware stores. I bought a Toro 15″ weed eater, the plug-in kind, for $45, and a green, 80-feet-long extension cord.
“At least it’s not orange,” M said. “That will help you not look like a dork.”
“I’ll still look like a dork,” I said.
We never made it to the park, since it was getting to be time for a late supper when the hardware store spewed us out.
As I carried M’s purchase, a bag of potting soil, into our house from the car, the neighbor teenager said, “Did you get a new tattoo?”
A new tattoo? Maybe he saw a mole on my arm, or something.
“You’ve never seen my tattoos before?” I asked him.
“Huh?”
“Just kidding. I don’t have any tattoos.”
I went inside, snapped the plastic pieces of the Toro together, and plugged it in. I think it will work quite nicely.
At least it did in the kitchen.