Just before Christmas break some ladies that work at the bus department generously made stocking caps for every single student at school, some 313 hats to be exact. Needless to say, today was a very busy day at school, with all of the excitement surrounding the inauguration. As a class we watched the swearing in ceremony online, and I strove to explain to the students why it was such a truly monumental day for our nation. So later this afternoon after the events of the day had kind of died down, the students made thank you cards for the hats. As I was looking through them at the end of the day the one below caught my eye.
I opened it up to read the letter that the girl had written. It all sounded perfectly fine until I got to the last word. 
I mean, really. Did my gripping racial equality speech from the morning not mean anything? Do we still need to be trying to defeat the black man? Disheartened, I called her up to my desk to ask her why she would write something like that. To my relief, she was trying to spell "ninja." Maybe some of that upcoming Obama stimulus money could be spent on some new dictionaries.
Tonight we made a quick trip to Walmart to get a few items. As we were getting the everything out of the cart to pay for them, Liam started pointing and saying “Shrek! Shrek!” over and over again. I looked around for a discarded DVD or those Pez dispensers they always have by the check-out. I couldn’t see anything, but he kept pointing at the cashier and yelling “Shrek!” I studied her nifty blue vest for a Shrek button or something but she wasn’t sporting a single piece of flair. I then realized that he might be calling the cashier by that name. She was a rather large woman. So large that she had to sit down on a stool while she rang us up. So large in fact that Bob and Jillian would throw their hands up in surrender. Now I realize that pointing at someone and categorizing them as a giant, oversized, green ogre isn’t the most complimentary title. It’s like calling a person unpatriotic.….or a slut.….or a Holocaust supporter…..or Rosie O’Donnell. These tend not to go over very well. As I was trying to quiet Liam down, of course Curious George’s sister Ella had to pipe in. With a quizzical look on her face she asked, “Daddy, why’s Liam calling that girl Shrek?” I lied and said that I thought he was telling us that he wanted to rent Shrek from the Redbox by the door. She didn’t buy this and pressed the issue further. “Maybe because she looks like Shrek,” she added, as I prayed that the cashier would just eat me and put me out of my misery. I handed the woman a $20 bill and didn’t even wait for my change or receipt. Sometimes you’ve just gotta cut your losses and call it a day.
This afternoon I dismissed tables one at a time to go use the restroom. One boy came back a few minutes later and asked me if he could call his dad to bring him some new socks because his were wet. Now Joey talks so slooooooooooow that the ensuing conversation lasted longer than the running time of Schindler’s List. I asked him how his socks got wet in the restroom. His explanation was that he ran to sit on the toilet “because I had to poop real bad.” While he was sitting there one of his shoes fell off. Unable to poop with only one shoe on, he kicked off the other one. I mean that’s the natural reaction when you’re sitting in a 3’ x 4’ cubicle caked with dried pee on the floor. According to him, he next heard a boy in the adjoining stall that was up to mischief. He himself should know what misbehaving in the restroom sounds like as earlier this year he sat on a urinal like it was a highchair and sang “My Humps” at the top of his lungs. Needless to say, young Joey proceeded to address the matter himself by stepping up on the toilet seat to look over the partition. This wasn’t well thought out because he’s about a foot and a half shorter than the mayor of Munchkin City. As he tried to pull himself up, he slipped and one of his feet landed in the toilet. After listening to his recollection of the events, I looked down to find both of his shoes still off, only one sock on, and his wet pants leg pulled up to his knee like a white, miniature LL Cool J. I sent him down to the nurse to see if she had any clothes for him. In true Joey fashion, he turned back to me in the doorway and asked if he could stop and use the restroom. Um, no.
I opened it up to read the letter that the girl had written. It all sounded perfectly fine until I got to the last word. 
I mean, really. Did my gripping racial equality speech from the morning not mean anything? Do we still need to be trying to defeat the black man? Disheartened, I called her up to my desk to ask her why she would write something like that. To my relief, she was trying to spell "ninja." Maybe some of that upcoming Obama stimulus money could be spent on some new dictionaries.
