Accumulation of Ridiculousness

It seems like yesterday, I was planning my first career:  I’m in the bathtub rolling from back to belly and back again; water is up to my chin. With each roll, the water splashes as far up the side of the tub as it can, without spilling over onto the floor. I crawl backward as far as I can, scrunch my long legs up, then push forward, going the entire length of the tub back and forth in rapid succession, until finally forcing water up the walls and onto the rug. My little sister is being dried off because I can’t do the routine with both of us still in the bathtub. I am doing my practicing. I am going to be a mermaid. It is a passion of mine and I believe I have the right aptitude for it.

Like so many plans, my dreams of sunning myself on large rocks and underwater racing with merfriends were beached somewhere along the way. Next came babysitter, a fast food server, variety store clerk, hospital ward clerk, and camera store clerk. For a while, my parents were afraid I was only cut out to be a professional student. Near the end of my stint as a student, I decided to stay a year longer and become a teacher.

I have had the worst days and the best days of my life as a teacher. First as a science teacher, then guidance counselor, and now as an English teacher. It all began with the first cussing I’d ever had in my life. It came from a female seventh-grade student. Then, it was a mother I’d gone to high school with (not in the same grade), who not only cursed at me but threatened to hit me. I quickly found out why teachers often quit after the first year. The teacher before me did just that, and those seventh graders wore it like a badge of honor. They fully intended me to walk out as well. They didn’t count on me being as stubborn as they were. The Valentine cards stolen from the local drug store and signed “Your lesbian lover”, only served as fuel to find out who the four students sending them were. And I did. Oh, but there was joy to come.

The best days are so many, I can’t remember; years and years of them. They were the days a student would make a connection between an abstract concept in science and their own life. Or I would receive a handmade card of a different kind, saying “I love you”, or thanking me for being their teacher. A calm day with a particularly rowdy bunch was a day sent from heaven. Staying late into the night preparing labs and group work was not always necessary to reinforce a lesson, but I strove to break up students’ tiring days and give them some enjoyment. I will never forget the little girl who couldn’t afford to buy a gift but brought me half a bottle of perfume from home. That still twists my heart up. Knowing my high school English students are able to move on to college and write an essay using proper MLA style or a creative narrative, makes me soar. Those are the simple, best days. The speech team I’ve coached eleven years has grown over those years and the students’ talents are amazing. For the first time this year, one progressed all the way to state. My work with speech has been one of my proudest accomplishments.

I have 26 days left in the classroom. How does one know when it is time to retire? Is it an incident that occurs and is too big to ignore? A certain number of years of work? The number of gray hairs? I think it just may be the accumulation of ridiculousness.

I love the ridiculous. One of the first crazy things I did was in the first or second year of teaching. I went out into the hallway with two other junior high teachers as we monitored the students leaving for the day. I began ranting about what a particularly rough day it had been.

“You need to do what I do when I am frustrated.” The male teacher walked into his room, easily slid a three foot tall Rubbermaid trash can into the hallway in front of me and said nothing more.

Seeing it likely had a few crumpled up worksheets in it by the way he moved it toward me, I dramatically drew my right foot back as far as it would go and said, “Like this?” and kicked it. My shoe flew off and the can didn’t budge. It was like kicking a brick wall. All I could do was hold my breath and attempt to hold in the tears. I knew my foot was broken.

“Aaaaaahhhhhhh!”

“I didn’t think you’d really do that. Look, it is full of bundled newspapers!”

Yep, they were still very tightly bundled. There is a lesson to be learned in not taking things so literally.

A few years ago, the table in the teachers’ lounge was elbow to elbow. It was lunchtime and our math teacher sat at the end of the table to my right and our history teacher was at my left. In the middle of lunch, I took a large swig of water and got choked. I desperately wanted to swallow it, but my throat felt like it had constricted and wasn’t letting anything down. There was no time to jump up or move away from the table. I looked to my left and the geyser erupted. All over the history teacher. Everyone stopped whatever they were doing. Mouths stopped mid-chew, fingers stayed glued in place while scrolling phones, and sentences hung in the air. It wasn’t a pretty sight. My water and saliva mixture spewed right into his face. The table waited for his reaction.

Dumbstruck, he said, “At least we’re friends.” He was absolutely correct. He and his wife and Jim and I often hiked or ate out together.

We were all in shock. “I am so sorry!” I tried to help him wipe the mess off, but soon decided I shouldn’t. “I am sooooo sorry.”

Actually, I couldn’t have handpicked anyone better to spit on, and I guess that’s what he meant by “At least we’re friends.” He wouldn’t have rather been spit on by anyone but me.

And my ridiculousness hasn’t stopped. There have been days of wearing clothing backward, insisting on using bathroom planners when no other teacher wants them, putting a tarantula shed in another teacher’s desk, and ranting over the intercom. Yes, I’ve done it all. I think we just know when it is time to retire. That ridiculous retirement meter may still be ticking for a few more weeks, but my personal one will never run out of batteries.

Photo by JJ Jordan on Unsplash