Cut Out For It
Blink. Four and a half hours; gone. Huge load of work done. That’s how I like my Mondays. That, and a box of fat cake donuts. Makes me work better. And in the words of one of Puck’s favorite Adventures in Odyssey characters, “So, sue me.”
By this time, I hung up the headphones after another Spanish lesson and strapped my knee brace back on. Had to dust that one off; sometimes when the whether changes, my old horseback riding injury flares up again. Sounds way more impressive than it actually is.
One o’clock. I was back in the school office again answering phones while the secretary had a pinched nerve looked at. Answering phones. I guess it’s been an unavoidable part of my DNA off and on for the past twelve and a half years now. Come to think of it, I don’t really mind it anymore.
The P.E. teacher breezed through in an African football jersey and sparkling cubic zirconia earrings. She’s a character. I came into the conversation right as she was discussing how people tend to drop a lot of pocket change in intersections.
“Yeah, my husband and I found this pack of gum in an intersection the other day, too. And it was still packaged. So we chewed it.”
The jaw of my office mate dropped. “You did what?”
“Hey, gum is like a buck-fifty! And it wasn’t opened.”
“And you’re still with us?”
At first, I blamed it on youth, but then I remembered that Grandma would probably have done the same thing.
Anyway, I did my time, about an hour and fifteen, got a little reading done on Ulysses S. Grant in the process, while talking with my office mate about her great-grandmother from Ireland and old antiques in the family.
A short time later, Puck plunged out of his classroom in his flying saucer shirt. Usually the girls get out of there first in their pack, followed by the boys falling over each other to get out, in a loud and obnoxious pile, usually leaving behind some article or other in the classroom.
The snow melt was making good progress as we returned, streaking down the highway to Puck’s Second Grade Pump-Up Songs. Every day. The same songs. Over and over. Fortunately, he has a mom who doesn’t mind listening to the same CD fifty times in a row. Maybe I just know how to tune things out without trying that hard.