Be Careful What You Wish For

I bundled myself up all snugly this morning and headed out to brave another day in my classroom.  Or, as I have taken to calling it of late, The Arctic Tundra.  The sun was scheduled to be high in the sky today and there was hope that the room might warm up by late morning.  Until then, however, my students, staff and I were going to be tucked away like Popsicles in the freezer section.

I arrived at school a bit earlier than usual since all the testing we are doing these days has pretty much wiped out any planning periods I might have once had.  I entered my classroom and...the heat was on!  

A quick check of the email revealed that our Heroic Principal had begged The Powers That Be for some respite from our frigid condition and had been granted two hours of heat each morning.  He warned us to not get too attached to it.  It seems that we started the school year over budget in the heating department but Mr. Principal promised us that he would make it his business to keep the temperatures at 65 degrees or die trying.

There was much rejoicing.

We reveled in the warmth.  We spake words of praise and even burst out in spontaneous song every now and again, making certain to use the principal's name in each verse.  It was super keen to be warm again.

Oddly, though, this gift from the central office did not leave us after a couple of hours.  In fact, it seemed to get more powerful after the first two class periods.  That was OK.  We were still kind of grateful for the feeling in our toes.  

When it stayed on through lunch, however, our happiness started to fade a bit.  It was beginning to get a tad uncomfortable.  No one dared approach the radiators for fear of third degree burns.  Plus, we didn't want to make them angry.  There was no telling how we might be punished should we attempt to shut them off.  It was better to just open the windows and hope that the cool breezes might make things more bearable.

If nothing else, it might help disperse the scent of Overheated Teen Aged Boys...

By dismissal time, we'd all started speaking with thick southern accents and adopted postures more suited to a lazy day fishing down at the creek.  Half of us were ready for naps and I was one of them.  This meant that I was not exactly at my best for my 2:00 meeting.  I used the word, "Dude" a total of seven times.  That is not exactly protocol.  

And, yet, no one really seemed to notice...

There is just no middle ground to be had these days, I suppose.  I left just after 3:00 in spite of the fact that I still had worksheets to copy and lesson plans to write.  I just couldn't keep my eyes open for another second.  Here's hoping that I'm not abducted by aliens during the night because there will be a roomful of kids with nothing to do tomorrow morning if I don't make it in.

It is more likely that I will be trampled by an Absurdly Gi-normous Kitty, though.  He is not exactly thrilled with the new diet.  Not one little bit.  Every time I make a move towards the kitchen, he thunders past me and screeches to a halt by his bowl hoping that there will be some little offering of the edible persuasion.  He also cries a lot.  He cries while I am picking up stupid dropped stitches on the scarf.  He cries while I am riding the little exercise bike for an hour and cursing all those black and white cookies I ate this weekend.  He cries while I make up excuses for not doing any weight training since I spent extra time on the hated bike.

Sometimes he just sits on my foot and cries.

Ask for the heat to be turned on and you get a solid wall of superheated air that sucks the very life force from you.  Ask for a big, squishy kitty to love and you get eight thousand pounds on your slipper-clad foot.  You have to be careful what you wish for.

He's awfully cute, though.  Maybe it's brain damage from the searing temps, but I really think the AGK has earned a little treat.  Who wants a skinny kitty, after all?  

Plus, I don't have the same heating system here at the manse as we do at the school and a chubby kitty could add some body heat to the coming winter nights...

SA