My Week

This week has not been wardrobe friendly to me. We’ll start with something that can happen to anyone, and that is the ol’ shoes-n-shit thing. Everyone has done it, wandered through a pile of dog shit and tracked it everywhere. I, however, inherited a lovely trait from my father: if we were on a golf course and there was one turd somewhere off the beaten path, we would not only find it, we would trod upon it and track it to the far corners of the earth.

It’s a gift, what can I say?

My problem is that the shoes I wear have a special non-skid sole, which means there are LOTS of places to pack in LOTS of shit, so, um, you get the picture.

Then there was the purse incident. For the record, I hate purses. I had one that I loved, it was designed perfectly, I could find anything in it, and it never once disgorged itself at the grocery store. It is, however, leather, which means it’s a heavy motherfucker and that gets tiring after a while. Especially considering I hate to go anywhere without paper, pen, inhaler, wallet, checkbook, keys and cell phone. All that adds weight, folks and my shoulders do not need that kind of pain.

So I gave up my favorite purse, and I’ve spent several years looking for the perfect replacement. I found a suitable one made of canvas, and with the exception of the grim pea-soup green color and uncanny ability to attract all kinds of dirt, it has served me well.

Have I mentioned my job lately, and what I do for a living? I’m a para educator in a special needs classroom. We are fully self-contained, and with rare exceptions, our students do not mingle with the general classes. Some of our students have physical issues as well as mental ones, and for one student, that means he vomits. A lot.

You can see where this is going, can’t you?

We were rushing to the bus when he started making “that noise” and we turned back to the nearest garbage can. Unfortunately, he managed to un-eat his lunch onto AND into my purse. Guess who gets to find out if her purse is washable! Yay, me.

Not only am I a para educator, I am also known as the potty princess. Several of our students need to be accompanied to the bathroom. Some can actually sit on the toilet, but still require diapers, while others are toilet trained but unable to get to and from the bathroom without getting lost or distracted.

I was toileting a student when she became…difficult. She began hitting and pinching me as I was attempting to remove her soiled clothing. Once she was divested of her diapers and pants, I was letting her sit on the pot while I logged information in to the record book. I turned around and the little darling grabbed the front of my shirt and refused to let go. It took me a while, but I managed to extract myself from her grasp and move away while she finished her business.

That was when I realized she was on her cycle and she’d been “investigating” herself when my back was turned. When she grabbed me… oh, yeah… I was glad my shirt is washable AND a dark color. I, however, had turned a shade similar to my now-abandoned purse. Not only that, but I still had to re-dress the darling and she was having nothing to do with it.

Fortunately, my supervisor is very understanding and allowed me to dash home for a quick change. In fact she kind of insisted, as she vacillated between gagging and recoiling.

I cannot begin to tell you how happy I am that the week is over.

I also cannot begin to tell you how much I’m looking forward to Spring Break in three weeks.