WNBP: It's The Heat...

My God!  I can't even put together a coherent sentence tonight.  The unrelenting heat has possibly rendered me incapable of written language.   As I said to a colleague today, "I'm good with this sort of thing in June.  I know it's just something I have to get through in order to make it to summer vacation.  But in September?  I just have no use for this!!"

Let's get to this week's Wednesday Night Bullet Post before I melt and lost all ability to make contact with the keyboard...

*It is hot.

*Like 95 degrees hot.

*Which, as I previously stated, is something I have no means for managing in the second week of school.

*I'm not kidding about the 95 degrees either.  This isn't just a case of Sheepie exaggerating for effect.

*In fact, my car informed me that it was 97 degrees outside when I vacated my third floor classroom with the one window we can't open because of that kid who broke it five years ago.

*I may or may not have had a meeting this afternoon, but I left anyway.  Too hot and tired to even bother checking on that...

*Tomorrow night is Open House for the parents.

*God help me if there isn't something in the way of a weather break between now and then.

*I actually thought hateful thoughts for the librarian and my favorite secretaries today because they get air conditioning and that seemed like the most unfair thing in the world by 1:00 this afternoon.

*The weather people assure me we are heading for a cold snap in the very near future.

*If the weather people are lying to me then they shall be added to the list of Most Hateful People.

*That means absolutely nothing since I really don't have the guts to confront anyone on that list.  Few even know they are on it.

*But it gives me a warm glow to know I have a list.  It makes me feel productive.

*Productive people have lists...

*Last Thursday, I sent the following email (or something almost exactly like it) to Mr. Principal (formerly known as Mr. Assistant Principal) and my director (formerly known as my director):

Dear MP and Director,

You have expressed your dislike for my long, involved emails and stories so I'll be brief.  Here is the situation:

*Yesterday, Daddy Sheep went to the dentist to have a crown replaced.

*Then a whole lot of people started saying things like, "whoops," and, "catch that!" and "Um...we're not sure.  We've never actually seen this before."  There were also a number of phone calls made.

*Now he is at the hospital being prepped for a procedure to remove the crown from his lung.

I'm sure everything will be fine but, in case I need to leave suddenly to donate blood or a spare lung, I wanted you to be aware.

Sincerely,

Ms. Sheep


*Mr. Principal took a while to email back.  His went something like:

WHAT?????  It's only the second day of school...


*Yes, it was quite the drama.  Not your normal dentist appointment at all.  The crown was handily removed, fumbled and it quickly disappeared down Daddy Sheep's gullet.  

*From there it hung a right and cozied up in a lung where it resisted all reasonable attempts at removal, requiring a pulmonary surgeon's expertise and an overnight stay at the hospital.

*Two overnight stays, actually.

*The dentist felt downright horrible because he is actually a heck of a nice guy.  He took care of my parent's car, his staff called the hospital multiple times to check on him and Daddy Sheep was visited by the dentist during his first night at Chez Sick Spot.

*Oh, and if you really want to lose some sleep before your next dentist appointment, get this next part!

*Most of the people my dad saw along the way from the dentist's office to the Urgent Care Center to the hospital were befuddled, having never ever seen such a thing before.

*However, The Queen of Pulmonary Procedures (not to mention many of the poor crown fumbling dentist's older colleagues) said that this kind of thing happens all the time.

*ALL THE TIME!!!!

*I've shared tales of my horrible dentist many times.  Many.  

*He's dislocated my jaw, performed a root canal without working anesthesia and spent a portion of one appointment scoffing at the idea of a woman ever being the vice president.

*He hasn't shot a crown into my breathing hole yet.  

* But, statistically, it seems highly likely.  Like I didn't have enough dental angst...

*Daddy Sheep is fine now and has some rather interesting x-ray images to put in his scrapbook.  

*All of which my parents were told could not be put on the Internet or believe you me, I'd be requesting copies of those bad boys every day until I could post 'em!

*And he went back to the dentist for a temporary crown the day he got out of the hospital.

*He's tough.  Plus all the women in the office wanted to hug him and I think he kind of liked that.

*While there, Dad asked the dentist if he'd ever played football in high school.  The dentist said he played briefly, but that it wasn't really his sport.

*"Fumbled a lot, I suppose," replied my father.

*It took a minute for Fumble Fingers to get it.  Eventually, he caught the correlation.

*I had my first extended conversation with our new Mr. Assistant Principal today.  I was really hot and cranky, but I felt I owed it to him to share the full extent of my wit.  

*I was, if I do say so myself, on a roll.  The educationally specific one liners were flying!

*I'm used to the old Mr. Assistant Principal.  He has a very good sense of humor, one possibly not shared by the new guy.  That or I'm more of an "acquired taste" than I thought.

*Fortunately, the new MAP didn't look offended.  Just really confused.  Perhaps a little overwhelmed. Maybe he was just wondering if the heat was getting to me.  

*Or if I required medication of some sort...

*I refuse to work for someone without a functioning sense of humor.  No school administrator is going to last long without one.

*Daddy Sheep is a retired school administrator.  And he makes fumble jokes to his dentist after a crown removal gone horrifically awry.  

*I intend to make the new MAP my personal pet project.  I will see that he has a sense of humor if I have to spend every day down in that office with a ventriloquist's dummy and silly string or my name isn't Laugh-A-Minute-Sheepish-Annie!!!!

*Watch the news.  I fully expect there to be footage of me being forcibly removed from the school whilst struggling against my straitjacket and screaming, "It's not my fault!  The man wasn't exposed to enough 70's sitcoms as a child!!!!!"

*It won't be tomorrow, though.  It will take a few hours for the heat to dissipate from the building and no one has the energy to drag me out until temperatures return to normal...


So there's the week that was.  And part of the week that is.  All of it brought to you courtesy of a fried brain and typed by fingers that stick to every key they touch!  Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

Now it's simply a matter of hosing off the sweat for a third time and trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow.  I need something sort of professional looking for Open House night, but lightweight enough to deal with that residual heat.

And possibly fire retardant.  With these kind of temperatures, you can't be too careful...

SA