The Kindergarten Capers- part1

So I get a call at 5:47 am to teach kindergarten. “It’s a half day but you will be paid for the full day!” the woman in charge of calling substitutes in my school district informs me. “Sweet!” I thought to myself. I got into teaching a few years ago and keeping with my” fear of commitments”, I am not a permanent teacher, just a substitute. Actually, once I got my certification to teach there became a freeze on hiring teachers. If I was religious man I would think that God was trying to tell me something, but conveniently I am not on speaking terms with God at the moment- when I get a full time job, maybe then I will talk to him again.
Anyway, there I am getting ready to go into school for my easy money making half day. I should have known I was in trouble when the lesson plans were 8 pages long- Double sided. High-lighted even before the lesson plan begins- in CAPITAL BOLD LETTERS- SEE NURSE. I go to see the nurse…”Well Joey-John and Macolany and Cynathith in the AM have diabetes and need a shot 15 minutes before snack and have to drink OJ but Joey-John can only drink the pulp and Cynathith gets the heart healthy but only a half a glass or she will convulse. Danialannalee is sensitive to peanuts but only the shell peanuts and Westanora has an abnormal fear of thunderstorms. The PM children have it worst…”
She continued to list all the inflictions these poor children would be succumbing to before the bus comes to take them home. Bus?
The school secretary chimed in “Oh yes, The AM students will be awaiting at the classroom door, but at 9:27 AM Micahedksju and Albernessy come to the office and are bussed to another school. At 10:30 the AM students pack up and go home and the PM students arrive on a bus and have to be picked up at EXACTLY 10:50AM..Now Jarcolester and Anniemarilyn and Markuserious stay over from the AM class, but any other students are still waiting to be picked up you have to bring them to the office and call home before the bus drops off the other students.” I must have looked like a deer caught in head lights because I was assured that it would all work out and to just go relax at the classroom. I still had 10 minutes before the bell rang. I got to my classroom and the door was locked. I go strolling to find the key. The janitor kept be entertained telling me the history of who pukes and who poops in their pants. Yes, what sub has to do to get into their classroom. As we turn the corner I see 17 little children crying hysterically! “What’s the matter?” I cried!
“The teacher forgot us!” they muffled through their tears.
“I am your teacher and I didn’t forget you.” I announce as if I was Superman to the rescue.
Little Jabar kicks me in the shins “Then why did you leave us in the hallway alone to get kidnapped?!” The janitor informs me that kindergarten starts 10 minutes earlier than the other grades.
Mind you I don’t even have the classroom door opened yet
I open the door and the little cherub’s almost knock me over to get to their seats and unpack. They know their routine and plow ahead. I am trying to make out this lesson plan only to notice that the kids are faster at settling in than I am at reading. I try to take attendance only to realize that I am an illiterate when it comes to pronouncing names. What happened to Mary and Johnny? Now I have Octovianna and Analissa and Gaybrealla. I finish taking attendance had ask one of the kids to take it to the office.
At that moment little girl with a name that starts with the letter X starts to cry.
“What is wrong?” I ask her.
“It’s my job to take the attendance down to the office.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Okay it is going to be that kind of day! She smiles and says “Ah-choo! Ah-choo!” “Bless you, are you alright?” I ask. She gets excited and helps this girl who just came in, unpack. I was about to ask her who she was when “Puke it up Peppie”, who seems to throws up when it’s too hot, starts to gag. I managed to get him into the bathroom before it was too late.
All this before 9:00 AM.
First up-morning work, I was left a math work sheet with cent amounts for the students to work on. I hand them out and before I even got the last page handed out I see hands up.
“Yes little boy in the boy?”
“My name is Montigaincarlosabdiel.”
“Well today it’s little boy in the boy.”
“But I like and I am proud of being called Montigaincarlosabdiel.”
“Well today be proud to be called little annoying boy in the blue, now what did you want?”
“What happened to your hair?”
“Are you over 50?”
“Do you have a wife?”
“What is your favorite color?”
“Why is your shirt all wet.”
“Your hair is wet.”
And 38 more questions
The questions came faster than my brain could comprehend. There has to be a Guinness Book of records category for the most questions answered in a 30 second time period.
The coin work sheet had pictures of coins and the students had to identify the amounts...ex: 5 pennies circle the amount 6 or 5…
I figured this would give me a few minutes to look over the 8 page lesson plan…Before I could put my butt in the seat I hear some sniffles:
I look up from reading to ask, “What’s wrong?”
“We don’t know how to add!” Four of the students flood the room with their tears!
“Chill-lax” I tell them
They think this is the funniest thing they ever head and start to laugh. I am trying to get their attention and the more I try to calm them down the louder their laughing gets. Children are so funny. I am getting really flustered and trying to stay angry, but the more I get angry the harder they laugh. They think my face looks funny when I get angry and I think of Donald Duck getting angry and how I used to laugh at him. I start to laugh myself.
I try to teach them how to count but this one kid is more interested in sticking the pencil up his nose. It gets stuck. He thinks it’s hysterical. “Fine you walk around all day with a pencil hanging out of your nose and be called Pencil Nose Boy!”
“Pencil Nose Boy! HAHAHA That is funny! I’m a Pencil Nose boy!”
I send him down to the nurse with a partner.
The lesson plan had allowed 15 minutes for to execute and we were hitting 30 minutes adding pennies! I decided to move on to calendar time. If you were want to know what it is like to be a P.O.W. just try to skip a Kindergarten’s calendar time.
“We HAVE to do calendar time!!!!”
“You are SO MEAN!”
“That’s NOT how you do it!”
“We have to sing the weather song!”
“You’re not a good teacher!”
“We HATE You”
“I want to sing the days of the week song!”
“I want to do the weather!”
Needless to say these kids take calendar time pretty serious! In the middle of calendar time I get a call from the office. “You marked Nashew absent but her parents said they dropped her off this morning. Before I send out an Amber Alert can you double check?” I turn to the class “Is a Naschew here?”
“Here I am!”
“When did you get here?”
“I told you Ah-chew was here and all you said was Bless you to me! Mr. R you gotta learn to listen”
I inform the front office that she is here and a sigh of relief is heard. I ask how Pencil boy is doing and she sounds puzzled. I explain that I sent two boys down to the office about 15 minutes ago. They never arrived.
I hang up the phone and my heart sinks. I hear they names being called over the speaker. I get a call a few minutes later. They were found and the pencil was released. Seems he became the school “show and tell” stopping into all the classrooms on the way down to the nurse’s office explaining how he got the nick name “Pencil Nose boy.”
So as I try to calm down the little cherubs, they announce “IT’S SNACK TIME!!!!!” YAY!!!”
These kids can’t add 4 pennies but they know when it’s snack time. I threaten to take their snack time away if they don’t lower their voices…
“We’ll DIE without snack!”
“You’re trying to KILL US!”
Three of the kids start to cry thinking they are going to die…
“I just want to see my mommy!” Magnanagellio cries
I try to calm them down the kids down by reassuring them that they weren’t going to die. They only calm down after I trip over Nathan-Daniel back pack. Why it was in the middle of the room only the Kindergarten fairies know.
I get them calmed down and have them write the letter “Z”-TOTAL CHAOS! It amazes me that we can teach 4 year olds to program DVD players but cannot teach them how to make the letter Z. Hananyteate was making the letter “R” because they are prettier. They were making 7’s and 2’s and had no concept what a “Z” was, never mind what words started with a “Z”.
Then one pencil tip broke and the chaos continues. Who has a pencil, who doesn’t. All of a sudden the word pencil makes them all laugh and call out pencil nose boy.
FINALLY it is pack up time. You would think they were Jews escaping the German’s. I have them lines up and Manasphit and Gallaphish are staying for the afternoon class and Sassone and Teachnique are getting pick-up by their neighbor, but not the one who usually picks them up????? Anyone left over bring to the office by 10:45 but you have to be back at the door by 10:50 to pick up the PM bus load of children and you cannot leave the students who are staying from the AM session in the room alone.
So at 10:45 AM I am marching with 10 out of 16 kids who weren’t picked up and I have to be back at the door in 5 minutes…I get into the office with these little midgets and run to the other end of the school as I get half way back to the door I realize I left the two that I have to carry over from the AM to the PM session. I have to run back to the office and get the little guys, who don’t want to leave the air-conditioned office. Knowing I have less than a minute to get to the door for the bus kids I grab the two kids under my arms and take off. I feel like Rev. Scott in “The Poseidon Adventure” when he grabs Robin, the little kid, and races to safety. Unfortunately, I was three minutes late and had an angry mob waiting. “It’s hot out here.”
“Who are you?”
“Where is our REAL teacher!”
“Where’s your hair?”
And the PM session begins ... more to come from Little French Boy…


PS...Creative license has been applied

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A Motherless Mother's Day

A Motherless Mother’s Day
When I lost my mother a friend welcomed me to the “club”. I felt a little uncomfortable being told that I was in a “club”. To me clubs were fun. There was nothing “fun” about being motherless. All too soon I found out what she meant by being a member of a club. No one but another “club member” knows what it feels like when you realize you don’t have parents, you have a parent. You now go to your dad’s house, not your parents’ home. Your friends talk about their parents and you don’t have anything to add to the conversation, or they apology and change the subject. You feel like a helium balloon that escaped the security of a warm hand holding you in place. You float aimlessly.
I drifted the first couple of months. I found alcohol my best friend. I found the voices of angels in every sip. The voices would tell me this isn’t the answer. I told them to shut up. I wanted my liquor and one night dates. I didn’t want a commitment because then you have to care and when you care you lose the person to death. I didn’t want that again. My mother would come to me and tell me this isn’t the way she wants to be remembered. I convinced myself that it was all in my mind and not her.
The holidays came and I walked through them. I would listen to friends talk about hating family and I would just go into the bathroom and cry. They say the person you kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve is the person you spend the year with-I kissed a picture of my mother.
May brought the knife in my heart – Mother’s Day. I am convinced that Hallmark is owned by Satan itself. Being reminded you are single on Valentine isn’t kind, but Hallmark has a “To My Single Friend On Valentine’s Day” card. So, now it’s a month long reminder that I am motherless. I want to remember MY mother and how she believed “Every day is mother’s day- where’s my present?”
I find myself frozen, crying in the Hallmark store at New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal .I’m so over-whelmed by all this Mother’s Day stuff and I have no one to buy it for. This little oriental store owner comes smiling over to me and tells me that I am upsetting the other customers by standing in the doorway crying, and my tears are staining the stuffed Bugs Bunny’s.
I end up in the Macdonald’s and order a hamburger and shake. I hate eating alone so I try and find a corner and eat so no one can see that I am eating alone, I sit in the corner and notice a mother and father and small boy. The small boy, about 8 years old, is helping his mother sit. She is heavy and is having trouble adjusting in her seat and her loving son is helping. I become that loving son and I remember helping my mother and I start to cry. I don’t want people to see me crying, but they are staring at me. I can’t slip out of the Macdonald’s because I placed myself in a corner so no one would notice me and now EVERYONE is noticing me! Then I see them all looking at their food and I catch a reflection of myself in the window and see that hamburger meat is hanging out of my mouth. Everyone is wondering if I am crying because my hamburger is bad. I just want this mother who has a loving son helping her to hug me. I want to feel a mother’s hug. I get out of my seat and start to walk over and as I do I over hear her say to her husband, “we have to get out of the city- all these sicko’s are taking over.”
I start to laugh- that’s what my mother would have said. I take this as my mother’s way of letting me know she is fine.
A friend of mine lost his mother and I welcome him into the club. He reminds me that is mother was old and had a good life. He also felt free to travel now.
My mother was right about mother’s day, it is every day and she is missed every day. I’m still not sure if I want to attach my heart to someone , but it’s nice to know I have a heart to be attach

Eddy's Pity Party

Eddy’s Pity Party
So I get to my car after work only to find that someone backed into my car. Someone either K turned or pulled out of a drive way. I want to cry. I just spent the week “day” subbing after finishing a long term teaching sub position. I found out that the district I am in will probably not be hiring next year. I have to find a job for the summer and hope for a teaching position for next fall. I just buried my friend’s father who was like a second father to me. He always had me sit down and tell him what was happening with me- just like my dad. He listened and gave me advice-just like my dad. I didn’t take the advice-just like I never took my dad’s. As I looked at him lying in a coffin I feel guilty because his sons NEVER made him feel like he was a burden and I always made my dad feel like one. Whenever we went out to dinner he would embarrass the hell out of me! He would order a hamburger deluxe without the pickle, lettuce and tomato and no cole slaw. I would argue with him –“
“Why order the deluxe if you don’t want what makes it a deluxe? “ “
I just want the fries.”
“Then order a hamburger with an order of fries.”
“It’s fifty cents more that way.”
“I’ll give you the fifty cents.”
Fifteen minutes later…”Where’s my burger?”
“You ordered it well done.” ….
”So?”
“It takes time for them to burn it.” …
Burger arrives and is sent back because the pickle touched the burger bun…
”I can’t have pickle touch my bun. I am allergic to pickles”
“You are not allergic to pickles.”
“They don’t know that.”
The man was kicked out of a Friendly’s, an ihop, a Sizzler’s and a hot dog stand. Who gets banned from a hot dog stand? My dad.
I miss him every day but if the truth be told I don’t miss going out to dinner with me. Losing my friend’s dad was like losing my dad all over again and it didn’t help to find that he is buried in the same cemetery as my dad.
Thursday morning I woke up so excited. As a substitute teacher you get to know many kids and watch them grow. For the past two years I was exclusive at one school and watched these children grow into terrific kids. At the beginning of this year I was sent to another school for a long term and wasn’t able to meet these kids until Thursday! I usually park my car in back of the school, but I was in a hurry this morning and ended up parking on a neighboring street. I go into the school and am greeted by the little chick-lets that I have seen grow through the years. They all smile and make me feel so good to be a teacher.
At Lunch time I went to my car and my jaw dropped! Someone had hit between the driver’s door and front wheel making opening the door near impossible. It opens slightly and I literally had to inhale until I turned purple to slide into the car. A HIT AND RUN and I am driving a car that belongs in a crash derby. WHY ME! Is all I can think? Where is my good luck?
I think to myself I need to get away. A friend of mine invited me up to Rhode Island. He invites me every three months and every three months he finds a reason to cancel. I just want a few days away to just clear my mind. Take a vacation from life. He promised and was making plans and at 2:30 I get a text message, “My boss wants me to work this week-end. I haven’t said yes yet.”
So here I am at the end of the week having a pity party for myself! Why is God doing this to me? Why can’t I have one GOOD day? Why can’t I have some happiness? !!!!
I have no hope left and just want one break; a teaching job, a new car, a glimmer of light to relight my hope- but I get nothing.
I find myself on the track and run to forget. I can’t concentrate on the run so I run over to the “Stop and Shop” to buy a salad for dinner. I get my lettuce and tomatoes and head to the self-service express line. There is person checking out and one waiting. I get in line and the man in front of me is frustrated that it is taking so long. I start getting frustrated myself. I see this tired looking woman. She looks old, but you can tell it’s from life taking its toll on her. It is apparent that her teen age son suffers from palsy. He is trying to help her take things out of the cart. The guy in front of me is making noises and getting agitated. The teen ager takes a jar of pickles and gets nervous from this guy mumbling and drops the pickles. The jar breaks. Everyone jumps! The guy in front of my storms off screaming, “Damn retard!” The woman yells at the son for trying to help and stares at me in anger. I find calmness in the chaotic moment. I look at her and say, “God must love you a lot to send you such a special son.” She looks at her son and smiles. “He is my life.” I smell the pickle juice and think of my dad. All the managers come to help clean up the mess.
I walk home from the store thinking how lucky I was to have the opportunity to go on job interviews. I see people at a bus stop and I think my car still runs. And as far as Rhode Island is concerned, I can do that any week. Compared to some people’s lives my problems are bumps next to the mountains they have to climb.
I think of my dad and I realize people don't come back to you in dreams and visions, telling you how great you are. They come back to you in actions that remind you of them and it's their way of saying, "You did good." I think it's ok to throw a pity party as long as you know when the party is over and you get back into the world of the living.