The DN

MONDAY MONDAY.

1  Got to work the EOY Dance Friday night.

2  That's End of Year for those just waking up.

3  Nice fifteen-hour day. 

4   My original plan was to hang out in the quad area next to the police car. Nobody tries to pull stuff around a police car, right?

5  <basketball buzzer>

6  They pulled a fast one on me and had the dance RIGHT where they usually park the police car. 

7  Outside dance. The area was pretty well-fenced, so my gig was to stand in front and smile while kids arrived. 

8  And watch carefully for kids sneaking in.

9  Not a bad gig, since most of the kids who go to dances in 2014 behave, and are pretty sweet kids. It's not really like the movies.

10  They just want to let off a little steam after a rough couple of weeks in which every teacher dumped projects on them.

11  That would be me.

12  So it was fun. Three teachers didn't show up for supervision, which gave the rest of us the gift of multi-tasking.

13  It was still pretty fun.

14  Until we had to cut off entrance after 9:30. I was put in charge of telling kids who had purchased tickets that they could not come in. There are no in-out privileges after that time. 

15  I had to stand sixteen-feet in the air and be a badass.

16  I had to stand tall and yell, "The Dance is  closed, so you need to turn around and go!" If they kept coming up the path to the gate, I had to keep booming that, for the last hour or so.

17 By the end of the year, most kids know this is the policy, and it has been pretty consistent. My recollection from my own high school days was that kids got turned down from going to a prom because they showed up too late. 

18  That was unnerving, but necessary. I took one for the team.

19  The funny thing is that last week when I gave a Romeo and Juliet bubble-in test, I purchased these WAY cool black pencils, pre-sharpened from Staples. The key to a good pencil is it's eraser. These looked sleek and had awesome erasers.

20  We teachers are nerds. We get excited about slick-looking pencils.

21  One student came up with a pencil where the lead had fallen out. 

22  "You lost your lead? That's pretty pointless," I said.

23  

24   I'll never do that again. <mouthing the words> NEV-er. 

25  The kid laughed. 

26  AnywayZ...

27   I decided to give the pencils away to my last two classes, just because they were cool.

28  Sometimes it's the little things.

29  On Friday I told my earlier class that I owed them some black pencils, and promised I would bring them this morning. 

30  We have another bubble-in test this morning, so I needed more pencils anyway. 

31  This of course prompted a trip to Staples last night.

32  I spent a great day with Nicole and Rene working on wedding stuff, so I didn't get out to Staples 'til 6:35. I parked, got out of the car, headed toward Staples when I saw some assistant sliding the metal night protection across the front door. He said a good-bye to his last customer, saw me coming and yelled "The store is closed!"

33   So I needed to turn around and go.

34  The irony dripped like a fudge bar. 

35  I looked up at the sky, winked and said, "Good one."

36   Yeesh.

37   I wound up buying a bunch of low-budget mechanicals at Safeway. They're not black at all. They're pastel. 

38  Ah, vell. Another trip today, I imagine. Plus I have to hang on to those pencils.

39  Don't you feel sorry for me that my job is so stressful?

40  It actually has been this year, but this weekend I decided I wasn't lifting a finger for the school. 

41  They have took and took and took, and I identified a pattern: they will continue to took and took and took until they can't took no more.

42  I love using verbs incorrectly. 

43  I am done withal.

44  My response to all this tooking will now be this: "It can't be done." And then I will walk away from whoever is doing the tooking.

45  I learned that from dear old Dad. 

46  That was the first advice he gave me when I had to run activities a few years back.

47  "Just look at them and say, 'It can't be done.' "

48  I tried doing that a few years ago, but I have this idiotic Puritain work ethic that claims hard work will always get you things.

49  Yeah, like a heart attack. 

50  I still feel I have to give it my all.

51  I'll begin once again this afternoon when I return to Staples and get those pencils before the joint closes. 

52  We all win that way.

53  Gottago. 

54  See you again.

55  Peace.

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