Yearbook photos, saving lives, and a training bra

Today was school picture day. Some students really dress up, while others apparently couldn’t care less. I had a girl who looked like she was wearing some Project Runway-designed gown to a state dinner at the White House, while one of my boys wore his favorite Green Day t-shirt. I led my class down when it was our turn to get our individual photos taken. The 40-something photographer that looked like a librarian who lives in a house full of cats motioned for me and said “Sit down right here, handsome.” Apparently I wasn’t posed properly because she tilted my chin down, yet did so by slowly rubbing her hand all the way from my ear down the side of my cheek. It was kind of like one of those long, lingering scenes you see in soap operas that takes forever to fade into a commercial. “So, you have a busy day today?” she inquired. “Ya, we’re learning to round to the nearest thousand this morning. Pretty exciting,” I rambled. She followed this up by asking me what I was doing later tonight. Before I could answer that I was going to be taking care of my daughter with pneumonia and giving my wife a much needed break, she said “I heard about this new restaurant in Dunlap.” Immediately she followed this up with “Say cheese.” I was so confused by this woman that I guarantee that my yearbook picture is going to be ruined by a confused, quizzical look on my face. Don’t get me wrong, the greasy hair, cat hair-covered blouse, and urine-colored teeth are hard to pass up, but unfortunately I had to decline.

Today we were reading a story about fire safety. In the article it outlined some fire safety tips and I wrote them on the board as we came to them. One of them was remembering not to re-enter a burning building. Now throughout the story almost everyone had a story to share. We heard about a boy throwing his pets out his bedroom window and another boy who admitted to playing with matches in his house. Ya, not exactly the brightest class I’ve ever had. As I called on another boy who proudly said that his grandmother once rescued two children from a burning house and ended up with her back badly burned. What a great heroic story. When I asked if she’s doing better today, he simply said “She died.” Hey, what a heart-warming story right before lunch! Who’s ready to go eat some ravioli?

Throughout the school year you really want to form a true relationship with your students, one where they feel comfortable with you and will really try to do their best in everything. Well I think I might have gotten to that point with one of the girls. We’ve started reading a book about a boy who runs for president, which has lead into some really rich discussions about the upcoming election. We were talked about term limits and how old they would be when the next election comes around and how long it will be until they are old enough to vote. At the end of the day as students were lining up at the door for dismissal one of the girls said, “If I have to be eighteen to vote, how old do I have to be to get a training bra?” That’s one of those questions that stumps teachers such as “What was the smallest dinosaur?” or “Why do I need to learn about isosceles triangles?” I told her that I wasn’t an expert on that and she’d have to ask her mom about it. She responded, “Oh, I thought you would know since you have a daughter.” If Ella has such large breasts at the age of three that she’s wearing a bra, then Lord help us.

The most unanticipated concert of the year

For Father’s Day this year my dad surprised me with tickets to see The Eagles. The only problem was that I’m not really a fan of them. Sure, who doesn’t like to sing along to Take It Easy or Hotel California, but I own one, count ‘em one, Eagles CD that I haven’t listened to probably since the youngest Jonas brother was born. My dad went to see them four years ago when they were in Peoria and came back raving about their live show. I think he mistook my feigned interest for disappointment that I wasn’t able to go. When he presented me with the ticket in June and I looked at the $187.50 price (yes for one ticket) I immediately wondered if it would be rude to ask him to sell it on eBay and just give me the money instead. Two hundred dollars can buy a lot of donuts and Sour Patch Kids, my two basic daily food groups. I thought better about that and tried to get myself excited about the upcoming show. I borrowed my dad’s stack of Eagles albums and loaded them on my iPod, yet in full disclosure I’ve yet to listen to a single track. Well the day finally arrived and yesterday we headed to St. Louis.

When we got into town we went to Union Station to eat. There was about a 45 minute wait so we stood off to the side near the dessert tray. Now I get annoyed by people who think they know everything. This girl in her mid-20’s came up to the dessert tray with her friends while they were waiting and started pointing to each dessert and loudly naming them like she was Wolfgang Puck’s personal pastry chef. I was particularly impressed that she could identify what a piece of cheesecake looked like. The girl had mad skills. The best part about it though was she thought that she was so smart but she butchered the name of almost all of the desserts. She pointed out “bananas forester” and “creamy brule.” Now most people hearing their friends mispronounce something would just keep it to themselves, but it was apparent that one of the members of her party could be a little catty. This other girl wouldn’t stand for this blatant misinformation and busted her out. “It’s bananas FOSTER, Shelley,” she called out, speaking even louder than Shelley had. “That’s what I said!” she yelled back. It rapidly became one of those lame SNL sketches where two characters just argue back and forth at one another. Dad and I slowly took a few steps to the side so no one would think we were associated with the Lauren Conrad and Heidi Montag of St. Louis.

After we ate we made our way to the Scottrade Center and found our seats. The lady right in from of us was from Romania. It was kind of obvious she wasn’t from around here before she even said it because she was wearing two-sizes-too-small purple overalls and a Hillary Clinton headband circa 1992. The look was completed with eyeglasses the size of Lake Huron. A friend asked her what her favorite Eagles song was to which she replied “Go Your Own Way.” I wanted to warn her that she’d be waiting all night for that one considering that she wasn’t at a Fleetwood Mac show. By about 9:30 I looked around our section and saw a number of older men asleep in their chairs, which is incidentally how I envision a John McCain presidency. A lot of old, white guys passed out in their chairs as Larry King Live flickers on the television.

Set List
How Long
Too Busy Being Fabulous
I Don't Want To Hear Anymore
Guilty of the Crime
Hotel California
Peaceful Easy Feeling
I Can't Tell You Why
Witchy Woman
Lyin' Eyes
Boys of Summer
In The City
The Long Run
No More Walks In The Wood
Waiting in the Weeds
No More Cloudy Days
Love Will Keep Us Alive
Take It To The Limit
Long Road Out Of Eden
Somebody
Walk Away
One of These Nights
Life's Been Good
Dirty Laundry
Funk #49
Heartache Tonight
Life in the Fast Lane

Encore
Take It Easy
Desperado

Texting with mommy

Yesterday a boy in my class repeatedly had his cell phone out. (Yes, third graders now have cell phones in their book bags along with Magic Tree House books and Fruit Roll-Ups.) I warned him that if I saw it again I’d take it away and keep it until the end of the day. Well twenty minutes later I followed through on my threat and confiscated it. While carrying it to my desk it started vibrating in my hand. I looked down to see that he had a new text message. I opened it up to a note from his mom that read “We’re going to Pizza Hut tonight.” What mom in her right mind would be texting their kid at school? The only thing she should be writing back is “You are a spoiled kid. Quit texting me. Pay attention in class or I will flush your cell phone down the toilet. Love, Mom.” I looked back through his inbox to find that he had text (texted?) her seven times that morning and she had written back each time. So what important things did he have to tell her that couldn’t wait until 3:10?

• 8:33 At school


• 8:51 Orderd chiken nuggets


• 9:11 I lost my sissers


• 9:40 I forgot my snac


• 10:22 Playin tag


• 10:54 School is borin


• 11:32 Im hungri

After receiving the Pizza Hut message I personally wrote her back with the following message: “This is Mr. R. Billy is not allowed to have phone @ school anymore. No more texts pls. Thanx. Enjoy ur pizza.”

Good for a laugh

Other than someone getting hit in the balls, nothing cracks me up more than seeing someone fall down in an extraordinary fashion. It helps when the person in question is Geraldo.

Slips of the tongue

So Grandparents Day has officially come and gone for another year. Fifteen minutes before it's always hectic, re-gluing crafts that have fallen apart, pouring 75 cups of lemonade, and reminding students to speak up so the grandparents on the other side of the room can actually hear the cheesy poem I'm forcing them to recite. The amazing thing, however, is that it always magically comes together.

I stood at the door as the grandparents arrived, shaking hands and directing them to their grandchild's table. They were a lovely group of people, except for the man with the Schwarzenegger handshake and the vodka breath. He said "I've heard a lot about you Mr. Richards" as he rammed his index finger repeatedly into my sternum. For one of the first parts of our program a group of students recites a reader's theater about grandmothers. One of the sections describes sitting on grandma's lap and explains that "there are no bony places." After hearing this line Mr. Smirnoff arched his eyebrows, leaned over to his wife, and informed her "I know where there's a bony place." His wife smacked his arm and this led him into a smoky, wheezy laugh. I braced for more to come throughout the afternoon, but thankfully the smack seemed to sober him up.

At another point in the program a few of the boys read a humorous story about a grandfather snake. One line in the story reads "The asp let out a deafening sound." Well one of the boys replaced "asp" with "ass". Luckily none of the students caught it but I saw a couple of grandparents turn to look at one another rather quizzically. No real harm done. Unfortunately less than a minute later another one of the boys accidentally read "His booby slithered out from behind the bush." Um, actually Anthony the word was "buddy." I wasn't so lucky the second time around and as you can imagine all of the students lost it. But, not surprising, the one who was laughing the loudest of all was the grandpa who smelled of cheap Lithuanian liquor.

Celebrating grandparents

Well the much heralded Grandparents Day program finally takes place tomorrow. Much blood (a few nasty paper cuts), sweat (our room's air conditioning hasn't worked for the last two weeks), and tears (not every grandparent is able to come) have gone into making this the biggest event since, well, last year's Grandparents Day program. The poems have been written, the skits have been practiced, and the coffee filter flowers are ready to be unveiled. Today we made our final craft, a lookalike that was made to resemble one of the grandparents that would be coming tomorrow. They'll be hanging around the room and at the end of the program the grandparents will walk around and try to figure out which one is theirs.

* After looking at the grandparent lookalike that she made out of construction paper, yarn, and wiggly eyes, one of the girls morbidly said "I'm secretly going to put this in her casket when she dies." Yes, a pink faced caricature with a pig nose and eyeglasses the size of Lake Michigan is what every rotting corpse needs.

* Most of the students always get excited the closer Grandparents Day gets. They want everything they make to be perfect and continually go on and on about how amazing their grandparents are. It's actually really sweet to listen to. However, today I overheard a girl whisper to a boy at her table "My grandma is retarded." All I could do was pray that she didn't write that line in her letter to her grandmother. "I love you because you are such a retard." When the boy asked why she said that, she responded "Well she ran over her dog on the way to pick up her friend for bingo."

* I noticed that one of the boys had colored in small circles in the center of both of his grandpa's hands. When I asked him what they were he said that his grandpa had round scars in the palms of both hands. If his grandpa is Jesus, well then I'd better get my act together before tomorrow. By the way, does the Lord like Oreos?

* While they were putting the finishing touches on their lookalikes a boy asked if he could use the rest of his yarn to make a moustache. I said yes and then added rather jokingly to only do this if you were making a grandpa and not a grandma. A sweet girl across the room, in all manner of seriousness, raised her hand and said "Well Mr. Ritchason my grandma does have a moustache." I cautioned her against adding this last detail as I wouldn't be able to contain myself if tomorrow the girl pointed out "Grandma, that's yours up there. Ya, the one with the caterpillar above her lip."

Lost shirts, demonic undertones, and a third grade Britney Spears

The other day one of the girls in my class was sick at home with a fever. To pass the time she laid on the couch sewing and stitching. (Are those two the same thing? It's so not my scene.) The next day she came in with a gift for me. She said that it was a label for me to sew onto the front of my shirt so in case it ever got lost someone would be easily be able to return it to me. If my name was Nate Richerson it would be a worthwhile idea.


We started working on some things for our Grandparents Day program coming up this week. One of the crafts the students are making is a flower with their faces in the center of it. So I took everyone's picture the other day and when I got them back this weekend one of them left me a little unsettled. In fact, it scared the crap out of me. It looks as though he wants to devour my soul. Judge for yourself.


And finally, I turned around at one point last week to see one of my students doing this. With a close-cropped haircut and some questionable parenting skills, he could have been Britney Spears circa 2007.

Riding the bus with Helen Keller

This past weekend Rach and I went up to Chicago for a couple of days. We had an amazing weekend, catching Wicked one more time, eating Garrett's popcorn, and being completely blown away by Hillsong United. On the bus ride to Union Station on Monday to catch the train back home, we sat across from an elderly lady whom just the sight of her cracked me up. Now I'm not sure if it was just too loud for her on the bus or maybe she had just finished her shift landing planes at O'Hare. Also, with the oversized sunglasses it looked as though she had routine cataract surgery over her lunch break. The whole Helen Keller act made me laugh, albeit inappropriately. If you look closely at the photo she looks like one of those old ladies that would be yelling "Who's making all that loud racket?" Um, Estelle, that's just the sound of your rapidly deteriorating hips.