Monday, April 10, 2006

EEEWWWW!!!!

This is a good thing...a very good thing.
The Sheep does hate her Mondays. They are rarely kind to her. Today was no exception. Hence, my happiness at discovering the arrival of my goat's milk soap from Peaceful Pastures. This stuff is amazing. I have super sensitive skin and this handmade wonder is so very kind to it. But I digress...
I arrived at school in the usual fashion: at a dead run courtesy of the large mug of coffee that fuels my still sleeping brain cells throughout the commute. As you can well imagine, a middle aged woman who has downed the equivalent of Lake Erie in coffee is in something of a rush to get into the building once she has reached her destination.
There was a complication.
Due to work being done on part of my classroom, water had been shut off to the entire building. And they were having a wee little problem getting service restored. (heh, heh...good use of the word, "wee") There were no working toilets, no running water, no nuthin'. This did not bode well.
We all believed, (naive souls that we be) that the problem was of a temporary nature and that everything would be fine in short order.
There was a complication.
Water was nothing but a sweet, drippy dream for the staff and students today. They were able to get it turned back on but unable to get it back up to pressure. This means no flushing. At all. Can't be done. Think about that. Yeah...
Once the bathrooms had reached a level of toxicity that only a biohazard suit could fend off, the decision was made to truck in porta-potties for our use. Hundreds of elementary students being escorted outside to use porta-potties...think about that. Yeah...
For the rest of the afternoon, the school secretary would get on the PA system every twenty minutes or so and announce something like, "All second grade classes and teachers please proceed to the exit by Mrs. Smith's room to use the Porta-Potties." Several staff were given the responsibility of directing students and handing out sanitary wipes throughout the event.
So, here we are: Porta-Potties in place, all toilets in the school overflowing with human ickiness, staff sneaking out to go use the luxurious facilities at the local gas station and it's the week before school vacation. This is my career. I went to school for seven years in order that I might experience this. And we may have no water tomorrow either.
New soap came today. This is a good thing.
SA

1 comment:

mrichme said...

Sheepish,

Your story reminds me of two stories from my school: 1. having to ship kids on a school bus to the town hall to use the bathroom and 2. giving kids a flashlight to use the bathroom when the power went out and we had to wait for the buses to make their dropoffs.

I couldn't imagine being a principal having to explain to a parent why their little one had to wait to use the porta-potty because it wasn't their grade level's turn.