Less than 24 hours after returning from a quick romantic weekend, my dearest darling, Ryan, was felled by an intestinal flu, so he’s been concerned that he might have given it to me.
Ryan: How are you feeling? Still okay?
Me: Are you texting to check on the state of my bowels?
Ryan: Yeah, I guess I am.
Me: In the immortal words of Ashford and Simpson…still Solid As a Rock.
Ryan: I’m thinking more fiber for you.
The greatest irony in education is that while we teachers are exposed to more germs than the average Turkish prison rat, we are also completely unable to take a single day off, when said germs prove victorious. Doubt me? Ask any teacher. We could have a full-blown case of ebola, with our internal organs coming out of our noses, and we would still be at work, pumped full of enough Dayquil to fell Courtney Love. One year, I was sick so often, that my boyfriend at the time, started applying Vicks to my chest as a form of foreplay. The man probably still can’t smell camphor without getting an erection.
Now why do we do this? Is it because we love your sweet cherubs so much that we cannot bear the thought of a single day spent without them? Fuck no, it’s because it’s so goddamned hard to prepare for a substitute, that dropping dead in our reading corner is preferable to the paperwork.
Imagine if, in order to take a day off, you had to create a plan for an untrained stranger, so they could present a seven-hour, detailed, interactive, intellectually challenging presentation for a group of 32 uninterested mental patients. You’d say, “fuck it”, and come to work hopped up on codeine, just like the rest of us.
Which leads to my theory as to how this was able to happen. The teacher in this story was so scared of writing 6-weeks worth of lesson plans, that a 9-lb child, emerging from her vagina was LESS of a pain in the ass than going to a hospital. LITERALLY. I don’t even think she was on her prep period! You think that custodians hate cleaning up glitter? Try placenta. That really pisses them off. You’re going to have to come up with a lot more than a 12-pack of soda to thank him for that task. Think about adding a handle of bourbon to his Christmas present.
So parents, when you throw some Tylenol in Susie to hide the fever, and then send her to school to infect us…remember…two can play at that game, and once she’s good and healthy…we’re totally going to let Johnny-Green-Boogers lick her pencil.
**To clarify, I do not think that children are mental patients. I DO think that children lose their minds when they get a substitute. You want to make a child drunk with power and supremely conscious of the juggernaut that is mob mentality…leave them with a complete stranger who doesn’t know their name or the bell schedule. Sit back…bring popcorn.
Fisticuffs and Shenanigans 