Stranger Than Fiction

I was sitting in the teachers room this afternoon with a group of my fellow educators.  We were joined by a young colleague who said, "Is it just me or is this place like something you couldn't make up even if you tried?  I mean, it's like right out of a movie..."

None of us could disagree.  At the time, we were all gathered to watch no fewer than five people, each with a bigger and scarier looking set of tools, try to get the nurse's bathroom open and free the child trapped within. This had been going on for at least thirty minutes. We had finally gotten around to the point where we were taking bets on whether the School Resource Officer would just take out his gun and shoot his way in.

The whole thing would have been much funnier if the kid stuck in there didn't have a serious medical issue and was being fed juice through a long tube stuck under the door and handed sugar packets in a similar fashion.  The school nurse was looking like she'd begun regretting not taking that relaxing job with the combat unit over in the Middle East and there was every indication that the custodians were going to have to go through the wall to get in there.  Frankly, if there is ever an attack on the school and gunmen are roaming the halls, I now have every intention of going in the bathroom to wait it out.  Those doors are solid!

The child was rescued and all was well in the end.  But I don't think anyone can disagree that things have taken a turn for the surreal over here in the world of Middle School Education.  What made it worse was that none of us were going home when that blessed bell finally rang at the end of the day.  

It was Parent/Teacher Conference Night.  

Yes, I realize that we just had one.  But we need two to accommodate all the parents.  Well...the regular teachers do.  I had but one conference scheduled and that wasn't due to happen until 6:15.  I usually use the time to get some work done and plan for the next few day's lessons.  Since I'd spent my prep. period watching the drama unfold outside the nurse's office, I hadn't gotten much accomplished.  I really needed the extra time tonight.  Yet, by 4:00 I was officially "done."  I didn't have the will to do one more thing.  I mostly just hung around the Guidance Office and chatted until it was time to go do my Caring Teacher Thing.  

I really do care...it's not a "thing."  It's just that I don't care quite as much by 6:15.  I care less by 6:30 when the parent I'm scheduled to see finally shows up.  But I happen to like this Mom a great deal.  She's cool, kind of a Biker Mom.  I enjoy talking to her and I like her kid so I was able to find my inner Caring Teacher pretty quickly.  

But it was still a long day which happened to fall in the middle of a very long week.  This long week has been fraught with danger, flying fists, swinging chairs, disgruntled co-workers and administrators who have had it with the lot of us.  I was tired and completely incapable of doing anything productive while I hung out and waited for the announcement over the P.A. system that said we could all go home.  How does one fill the hours when one is not really in the mood for actual "work?"  Hmmm...

The answer is obvious.  Or it should be.  But this has been a strange day, a strange week and a strange Conference Night.  Things did not go the way they usually do.  They went right back to "surreal."  I did something I have not done since I first began teaching in this school district and being subjected to Parent/Teacher Conferences With No Actual Conferences on my schedule.  It was the crowning touch, the icing on the cake of weirdness, the straw that broke the camel's back and forced him to go on Dromedary Disability...

I forgot my knitting!!!!!!

SA