Wednesday, January 13, 2010

WNBP: Babies And Ten Years In Therapy

Ah, Wednesday! You might get a bad rap from others, what with being the middle of the week and all. Some people don't see your beauty. They don't understand how you have a certain "something" that makes the day just a little bit brighter. You may not be Friday, but you ain't chopped liver. You are the day of the Wednesday Night Bullet Post! How can I not love you for that?

Here's what I came up with for this particular beauty of a Wednesday:

*As I headed out for today's commute, the car told me that it was -4 degrees.

*I often think that my car is overly hysterical about the weather. It gets all worked up.

*Today, though, I felt that it was being somewhat optimistic.

*Cold out there...

*I started anew on the mittens for Mrs. Secretary Who Sits At The Back Desk.

*There is a cuff.

*And a little bit of not-cuff.

*There will be no further flights of fancy with these mittens.

*Plain mittens will be finished. Thrummed mittens will only lead to tears.

*I just started Chris Wooding's Poison.

*Even if you don't care for Youth Lit, I'd still suggest you give this author a try.

*Magical...

*The Kid Who Doesn't Have An Off Switch didn't want to eat lunch in the cafeteria today so he ate in the classroom.

*He's my only 7th grader.

*Why he suddenly felt that the dining experience would be improved by my having a baby, I don't know.

*But that's what he felt we needed to discuss. He even drew a picture of my future child on the board for me.

*He's not a great artist so he had to get creative.

*Round baby with flippers.

*Then he decided it looked like an alien baby so he made it green.

*And wrote, "Happy Pregnancy, Ms. Sheep!"

*The Cheerful Teaching Assistant was quite amused.

*She's not getting any mittens from me.

*I am not going to explain menopause to a 12 year old at lunch. That is not in my contract.

*The entire episode ended thusly:

TKWDHAOS: (looking happily upon his round, green flipper baby) Ms. Sheep, I really enjoyed making a baby with you.

Ms. Sheep: (only capable of making incoherent gurgling sounds as she watches her career crumble around her)

TKWDHAOS: No! That's not what I meant! I meant drawing a baby! FOR you! Not WITH you!

MS: Please stop talking.

TKWDHAOS: (adolescent voice cracking as hysteria overtakes him) For you! Drawing! No making babies!!! C'mon! You know what I meant! Right?

MS: Stop. Talking. Now. I need to call my therapist. I suggest you do the same.

(By now, the Cheerful Teaching Assistant is beyond help and must leave the room before she laughs herself into an injury. In the other room, the boy who is Gauged And Aerodynamic is sitting slumped over his computer because he has been sick all day. Even from this position and in the throes of his infirmity, he can clearly be heard to say, "You are one sick little dude...")

TKWDHAOS: You KNOW what I meant! You know... drawing...baby...

MS: For the rest of the day? No eye contact.

TKWDHAOS: (collapsing in a chair) Agreed.

*In all the excitement, I forgot to erase the board.

*One of the subs came in to ask a question and now there is an unquashable rumor going around the building regarding my being With Child.

*Not true.

*No alien baby. With or without flippers.

*Just years and years of therapy ahead of me.

*It's still really cold out there.

*I'd go ask my car what the actual temperature is, but I don't trust it.

*And I probably shouldn't go out in my delicate condition anyway.

*There's a three day weekend coming up.

*Which seems sort of wrong considering that I just finished a long vacation.

*Not going to quibble, though. I like a three day weekend.

*I can knit mittens.

*And read my book.

*And not have to talk about alien babies.


Another Wednesday settles quietly into twilight and Sheepie is going to see about getting herself some dinner. Nutrition is important for we alien-flipper-baby-mommies, after all. I should probably eat something with folic acid since I hear good things about that. I don't know as I have anything with folic acid in it, but it's worth a look in the ol' cupboards. Failing that, I'll probably just go with something from the bourbon shelf.

At least until I can find a therapist who specializes in Unfinished Mitten/Temperature Sensitive Car/Alien-Flipper Baby Issues...

SA





18 comments:

Anonymous said...

LOL! Just LOL!

Jeanne said...

OMG. My sides hurt. I wonder if the kid posted this embarrassing episode to his Facebook status?

Uh-oh. My verification word is:

phicl

That's either pickle, or fickle.

sheep#100 said...

Well, you did mention (once or twice this month alone) that he does not have an off switch.

PS - You do remember teaching the CTA how to knit, right? She can make her own darned mittens any time she wants.

Julia G said...

Now you'll have to make thrummed mittens and booties for the alien-flipper-baby when it emerges from your chalkboard to seek its revenge!

Sadly, the bitter cold here in southern New England has caused my car to progress from hysteria to springing a radiator leak :-( Luckily we should reach a balmy 40 degrees on the 3-day weekend.

Beth said...

Why was the sick kid in school? Poor thing. Being with child could give you lots of days off from school. I'd go with it...

Mel said...

I suppose you could direct him this, but it likely wouldn't do your career much good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOGAAlHzF4o

Mel said...

um, *to* this, that is.

Karen said...

Oh my!!

Donna Lee said...

Poor kid. Those kind of rumors can scar you for life.

Cursing Mama said...

I was laughing my ass off until you mentioned that 3 day weekend thing. Then I got a little cross, I'll admit I was envious. I looked at the calendar to see what this mysterious day off could possibly be blamed on and I then realized that I too have a 3 day weekend.
Totally back to smiling!

Elaine said...

Simply tooooo funny!!

Denise said...

This was so hilarious! Me here just laughing outloud and my cats wondering what the heck is wrong with me...they wonder about that a lot actually.

Anonymous said...

Well of course the CTA will not be getting mittens, you'll be too busy knitting for your round, flippered, alien-baby!

knitseashore said...

Does ravelry have free patterns for flipper-mittens?!

Catarina said...

Maybe TABWFA (the alien baby with flipper arms) is sufficiently alien to emerge from the chalkboard rather than your retired womb. I'm sure that erasing the board functioned only to make it invisible.

As for thrummed mittens, they sounded perfect when my snowboarding nephew told me on Dec. 18 that he'd rather have Xmas mittens than a hat. Swatching killed *that* concept. I ended up making felted mittens using my thrum roving for some stranded fun over the knuckles. I also worked in some post-felting ribbed cuffs inside. They arrived on Dec. 31. He thinks they're amazing, but I say KISS! (That is to say, keep it simple, sweetheart.)

Knitting Linguist said...

Oh, thank you for that laugh!! Be careful not to slip on that ice; that can be dangerous in your condition.

Teri S. said...

Too funny! It really brightened up my Friday evening, where I'm still at work, looking to wake up at 3:30 tomorrow morning to go crew for a long trail run that Tom is doing, and facing the fact that not only do I not have a long weekend this weekend, but I'm probably going to have to work most of the day on Sunday.

I'm going to have to remember the TABWF. And what the TKWDHAOS said. It will measurably improve the weekend.

Ronni said...

It's a good thing I work from home these days. Laughter that loud and hysterical in an office causes a lot of prairie dogging and would result in that story becoming even more widely known.

Although, now that I think about it. I am totally sending the link for this post to my hubby. He needs a laugh just like I did. We're having lots of lovely rain and some of it is making it into the house. Not good.