Wednesday, May 16, 2012

WNBP: The Things People Say...

Another Wednesday Night Bullet Post is on the schedule and I can't help but use it to reflect upon the things that have been said to me lately.  I generally try to avoid talking to the humans whenever possible.  However, since I have to work, shop and periodically get the mail, I sometimes have to suck it up and interact.

That is when people say stuff.  It is a necessary risk, I fear.  I'll share one or two of these little tidbits as I process the past seven days in bullet point format.  Perhaps it will all make sense to me then...

*I finally managed to make my way over to the DMV and secure a new driver's license.


*I remembered my birth certificate.


*As well as a back up copy of something that looked official and seemed to indicate that Mommy and Daddy Sheep were graced with a living, breathing, snotty-faced girl child many moons ago.


*I also brought along several utility bills, none of which were yet paid and all of which seemed to indicate some loss of a very important service in the near future.


*This is how I was supposed to prove that, in addition to being born, I also reside somewhere.


*The nice lady didn't ask for the unpaid bills.


*The "please take a number machine" was broken.


*Someone had written numbers on sticky notes and stuck them all over the machine.


*We all figured it out.


*I am one of the lucky individuals who is going to help shake up the renewal rotation by only getting four years out of this license instead of the usual six.


*The nice lady, who probably has been taking a lot of guff about this lately said the following to me in a very nice, loud tone:

"No!  This is a GOOD thing!  You see, when you come up for your next renewal you will be FIFTY-ONE.  Wait...let me do the math again.  Yes.  FIFTY-ONE!!!  You will be excused from The Mandatory Old Person Eye Test because only fifty-two year old people have to do that.  And you will be FIFTY-ONE!!  Did you hear me?  Shall I repeat it?  Louder, perhaps?"

*I did not punch the nice lady in the throat.  I wanted to.  No jury would convict me, of this I am certain.


*But she really was a very nice lady and clearly so thrilled by my good fortune that I didn't have the heart.


*I shared this horrific story several times today.


*Little Einstein, who was working on his math under a pile of discarded cardboard in the other room overheard me telling the Various Teaching Assistants.

*"Hey, Ms. Sheep?  Are you old?  It sounds like you might be old..."

*For the record, I don't have to take this kind of crap from a kid working on long division under a pile of discarded cardboard.


*I don't even have to dignify it with a response because that is the rule when dealing with 6th graders who burrow under cardboard as if this is a perfectly normal thing to do.


*Look it up.  You'll see I'm right.


*I trust everyone had a nice Mother's Day.

Da Boyz bought me flowers.  Roses, even!


*Of course, I had to get in the car to get them. And fork over the cash.  And there wasn't a card or anything.  Cats can't drive or manage money and you can't get them to sign a card no matter what the occasion.


*But I'm spinning it the way I think works best.


*I met up with Mommy and Daddy Sheep, along with Baby Brother Sheep, SIL Sheep and Niece Sheep.  Also present was a very little Great Nephew Sheep and a Little Sheep In Progress Who Is Nothing More Than A Bump.  We were a jolly Mother's Day Gang!


*I like it when there are a few mothers in the group.  I get to walk into the restaurant and shout out a hearty "Hey all you Muth-ahs!!"

*This tickles me to no end and no one can really say anything about it.


*That joke doesn't seem to land as well on Father's Day...


*The best Mother's Day Story EVER was told to me today by a colleague.


*She was called out of a meeting on Friday because her 86 year old mother knocked down the delivery guy bringing her Mother's Day flowers.


*Then she kicked him.  


*Because she saw him reaching for something (which turned out to be a lovely bouquet but how was she to know that at the time, right?)


*My colleague had to call her brother and tell him to get over there quickly because mom was going to jail.


*The moral of this story is: Never Wake Up An 86 Year Old Woman Early On A Friday Morning And Fail To Identify Yourself Whilst Reaching For Something Her Cataracts Obscure.


*The other moral of this story is: The Fastest Way To Convince A Disgruntled Delivery Person To Not Press Charges Is To Point Out How It Will Look In Court When You Confront The 86 Year Old Defendant Who Kicked Your 40 Year Old Butt.


*I wish for nothing more than such a story to be told of me in my golden years....


*Which, according to certain students and government employees, will be very soon.


*Look.  I knit a dishcloth.


*This is still technically a knitting blog, right?  Figured I should give a shout-out to my dwindling skills with sticks and string lest people forget that...


*The Siren (who lures the boys to their doom with her sultry song) says, "You should be reading to me now" every time she enters the room.

*Since, whenever I am not reading to her, she is wreaking havoc, I am plowing through The Hunger Games at an unprecedented speed.


*If she agrees to behave, I agree to read more.


*It is a working system, if not exactly one conducive to my having a voice left by the end of school.


*Meh.  I'd be losing my voice anyway what with all the screaming at her to stop the havoc.  Might as well get some literacy in instead.


*The other day, The Boy Who Likes To Shout Toot-Toot made an observation.

TBWLTSTT:  Wow.  You just got so mad your eyes literally crossed.  That was the coolest thing I've ever seen!

Ms. Sheep:  (gazes at him blankly, unable to formulate a response or possibly trying to summon a really good death stare)

Cheerful Teaching Assistant:  Way to read a room, dude.

*The best part of my teaching career right now is the commute.


*I'm loving the audio version of Beautiful Creatures (Beautiful Creatures, Book 1) and I take back what I said about the reader last week.  He may not be great with narration...


*But this guy really does rock the dialogue.


*A great way to pass the time between home and school.


*And on the home front, I've been enjoying By a Thread (Elemental Assassin).


*I somehow managed to forget how much of this series I'd already read but memory has returned and I'm glad I checked back in with my favorite assassin.  


*Someone should be keeping an eye on the assassins, after all.


I think that I should say, "good night, all" at this point.  I feel like I've managed to work through the things I've seen and heard this week.  Besides, I need to clear my aging mind for all the new things people will be saying to me.  It is my understanding that people of my advanced age and fragile temperament should keep a section of the brain open for new stuff since we don't retain important facts like we used to.

Maybe I'll even come up with a snappy retort for the people who want to discuss my ever-increasing age...

SA

6 comments:

kmkat said...

We decided to hire a high school kid to do some of the yard and home maintenance stuff. Smokey wrote the ad that we took to the school. "Elderly couple need help with home maintenance ..." I blanched when I read that but what could I say? We are both on the shady side of 60, after all.

Donna Lee said...

This is my 'senior citizen discount' year. I'll be 55. The AARP seems to want me. Bad. They send me stuff once a month or so. I don't want to fork over the 16 dollars a year.

My drivers license is due next year. We only get 4.

Anonymous said...

Last month, I took my niece on a cruise to the Bahamas as a joint 18th birthday/high school graduation present. She had the nerve to tell me I'm old. I don't feel old. I feel like the super-aunt who took her on a cruise. And now I can document that 51 isn't old. 52 is, at least in Maine, where I am not.

Anne P said...

My great aunt is 87. She refuses to admit to more than 65, since she can get a discount on coffee with that. None of us are allowed to move past our respective ages that we were when she was 65. She has spoken. (And really... she looks less than 65. I wish I had her genes. I look more than 65 most days.)

AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!!!

Elaine said...

Aaah, to be 51 again.......
If you continued to knit on that dishcloth until it was, oh, say, 28" in diameter, that little "bump" you enjoyed Sunday with would have a lovely little baby blanket.... without any annoying corners. Just sayin'...........

=Tamar said...

Or if you stopped increasing and just knit downward in a tube, the dishcloth would be a hat, which would probably get more use than a baby blanket anyway.