Friday, Sweet Friday

It was a long week. Truth be told, it’s been a long few weeks since one of our paras left for greener pastures (greener and quieter, less hitty/pinchy/scratchy pastures). We’ve had to deal with subs from hell, who believe they know everything or if they don’t, they just sit there and talk you to death to make you think they know something.

We finally got our replacement para and the jury is still out on her. Mind you, I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt because she’s new, but she’s making us all a little crazy. She will NOT shut up. I know she’s nervous, but really… REALLY? Stop talking, listen, and observe.

I’ve spent a great deal of time out of the class room with Mr. Cheek. We wander around the campus as I attempt to get him interested in some kind of little jobs he can do for a grade. He has been quite resistant to the idea of doing anything except “stimming” on leaves and sticks.

One thing we’ve learned is that he has a thing for light colored clothing. If a woman wears a top that is light, he is drawn to it and will make friends with her bewbs. Mr. Cheek lurves him some bewbs.

However, Mr. Cheek is just as fond of light colored pants, and if a man is wearing them, he will be gifted with a special greeting we now call a “Boy Howdy” because, boy howdy, that’s quite a surprise! Groin grabs are only funny… well, almost all the time. For us, anyway.

The other day, Mr. Cheek and I were heading back to class after lunch, when I noticed the dear lad was having a good game of “free Willy” in his pants. Since no one else was around, I wasn’t too concerned with this activity, especially since every time I tried to dissuade him from doing it, he’d smack me pretty damn hard. Then he stopped walking and when I turned to see what he was doing, he had dropped trou and was about to take a pee against the wall.

That’s when things got exciting.

I yanked up his drawers, which made him cranky, and away we went. He was swinging at me (which was difficult for both of us, because I was behind him. Every time he tried to hit me, his pants would twist, which annoyed him so he’d stop to adjust them and I’d get him moving again. It was a long, noisy walk, believe me.

Thursday was pretty good, considering we didn’t have a full compliment of students. It would have been nice if that had fallen on Friday instead, but of course, that day, we were only missing one student.

And the teacher.

So we had the teaching sub from hell, because we’re so damn lucky. I’d worked with her before and it got to the point that I told a former supervisor that if she was the sub for her class again, I would have to go home with a migraine, because there was no way I’d work with her.

That was when I worked in Kindergarten. She’s followed me to the middle school. The good news is, she’s changed a little bit, finally coming to grips with the fact that those who work in the classroom (even those of us without teaching credentials) actually know a few things, including what the hell we’re doing. That little piece of information was missing from her brain when I worked with her back in the grade school. We had one incident of “oh, no you don’t!” early on today, but we managed to get it quashed before it got too ugly. After that, she was more than happy to listen to what we had to say.

We are a very efficient group of women in a complicated classroom. We handle difficult situations on a daily basis and it takes a lot to make us nervous. We are resilient, caustic, intelligent, patient, kind, forgiving, able to find humor in just about everything, and VERY stubborn. We make an amazing team and I’m proud to work with them.

Despite all that, by the time Friday rolls around, we’re all ready for it and embrace it with open arms and strong coffee.