Lance Bass Ruined My Life

Road Kill

I would like to tell you about the past two weeks of my life. Now as some of you may realize school started two weeks ago. Usually, I will not work the first week of school because I like to take that time to prepare for the madness that will ensue when I do finally pick up a substitute job. That and the first week is just full of craziness that I would do better to avoid.

But this year was different. The school I was at last year actually asked me to come back at the beginning of the year to take over a class for a woman who was retiring later this year. The thing is they couldn’t hire me for the class because the woman was still there just taking every single vacation day that she collected over the last 40 years. So I was going to get to be the teacher, with all of its responsibilities, with none of the benefits. To add just a little more fun, let’s make it a pre k class.

Oh yes, can you imagine me in a pre k class. Just take a moment to picture it in your head. Are you seeing fires being started? Kids running amok? Four year olds rising up in mutiny and taking over the country? That’s what I saw running though my head.

Now I want you to imagine what teaching a pre k class is like. To do that, I am going to paint a mental picture for you. Yes, goddammit I am using metaphors, just close your eyes and get the fuck over it.

Picture yourself standing in the middle of a long country road in the middle of no where. The sun is shining. The wind is blowing. You are surrounded on all sides by fields of beautiful flowers. Life is good. And then you get hit by a fucking Mack truck. Granted it might be the most adorable Mack truck in the world, but it’s still a fucking Mack truck.

I have never hurt so badly in my life. My back ached so bad that when I got home I physically could not get off the couch for three hours. And it’s not just the running after the kids that’s the problem. It’s the having to open their milk, and their cereal, and the making sure they don’t fall while trying to walk. And the crying. Oh dear god, the crying. I actually had to wring my shirt out during nap time. I’m talking hours and hours of crying.

And that’s not to mention the girl who came to school in diapers because she is not potty trained. Yeah, I didn’t sign up for diaper changing. That is waaaaaaay beyond my pay grade.

It’s only been two weeks and I’ve already taken to hiding in the bathroom from time to time. But you know what? The other day we made paper plate monkey and it was about the cutest fucking thing ever. But making it incredibly cute does not make it any less of a Mack truck.

The Summer Of Lazy

So Friday was the last day of school. It was kind of a weird day for me because as much as I bitch about them, I got a little attached to the monsters. And facing a summer without seeing them is a little sad. Not to mention that I don’t even know if I am going to be able to get a job another sub job at that school again next year makes me kind of miss them, even the one who came to her graduation ceremony dressed like she just stepped out of the hooker scene in Flashdance. (Is there a hooker scene in Flashdance? I actually haven’t seen the movie so I don’t know for sure, but if there is I’m sure it would involve the same outfit that this 1^st grader girl was wearing. FIRST GRADE!). I know, right, who knew that underneath all that hate and ice, there is a marshmallow buried down there in my heart.

But it’s not going to be all fun and games because I still have to make money over the summer or I will be in that unfortunate position where they will threaten to take my car away again. So since school has let out I have actually worked a full week’s hours in three days. Yeah. Luckily I don’t do a whole lot at my job except read books and watch movies.

Now that it is summer and I am going to be taking a small vacation (I love how my idea of a vacation is only working one job for two months.) it is time to catch up on a bunch of stuff that I have been letting slide lately. Like cleaning my car. I’m embarrassed to say that the pile of trash on the passenger floor has grown to a level not only level with the seat, but has surpassed it. This makes a very dangerous situation when making sharp turns and the Great Wall of Crap comes crashing down on you.

Another thing that I am going to be catching up on is my use of drugs. I’m not talking about street drugs or anything like that, I mean school’s out so where would I get those kinds now. I’m just talking about regular shit. Like the other day my back was hurting so I took a muscle relaxer thinking it would help. Well, it didn’t so much help my back but it did give me some fucked up dreams about me running from wild animals in Botswana. I’m not sure how I know it was Botswana because I have never been to Botswana, but I did. That’s a kind of fucked up dream that can only come from some sort of legal chemical reaction. This is an experience that I feel must be repeated several times over the next couple months.

Also I plan to do a lot of catch up on my television consumption. I mean if there is one constant in life it is that anytime you turn on the TV, there is going to be an episode of Law and Order on somewhere. And if you are really lucky it’s going to be one of the ones with the sexually based offences. That’s everyone’s favorite even though they won’t admit it.

So this is what my summer is looking like. Cleaning, drugs, and Law and Order. It just shows that my life is in a good place.

Physical Education

So yesterday was Field Day at school. This is the first time I’ve ever been to one since I have started all this subbing. And let’s just say that this was an adventure that I am not sure if I really want to encounter again. Pitting the kids against one another in ridiculous events only makes the little monsters turn a little violent towards each other, with all the taunting and the booing and the whatnot.

It should probably not come as a shock that my Chunky Monkeys (Yes, that was the name I gave my team.) kicked everyone’s asses. Not only are my kids a little smarter than the rest of the classes in 1^st grade, they have a thick layer of crazy right under the surface. This tends to make people underestimate them because all the other 1^st graders wear their crazy on the outside. Well, they swooped in and destroyed the competition. Are you really surprised? With this kind of bitchy as their coach? Did anyone stand a chance?

So we go threw all of the lame ass events, with my Monkeys just dominating. My kids are celebrating and honestly, not being the best sports about the whole thing. I tried to teach them all about sportsmanship and all that, but that kind of went out the window when I stuck my tongue at and shook my ass at one of the rival teachers. Yeah, I’m not really the best sport, especially when I’m winning.

An hour later, after we have murdered all the other teams and I’m about to lead my class in a victory dance that would end with us laughing at all the other teams, the teachers in charge decided that the only fair thing to do would be to make everyone a winner and forget about the score. Yeah, what’s that bullshit about?

I’m old school. If my kids kicked your ass, I want that acknowledged. I want it yelled from the rooftops. I want a huge trophy that I can wave in front of all the other teams to show them that I am awesome and they all suck. This is all for the kids benefit, clearly.

But no, I was robbed from that glory. I have to share it with a bunch of losers because the powers that be decided it was more important for all the kids to feel good about themselves, then having my kids being acknowledged as their betters. You know, if all those other teams were good enough, they would have won, but they didn’t.

I’m not very PC when it comes to this. We didn’t have any of that feel good, touchy feely crap when I was in school and I turned out just fine. Just because I have a thirst for the destruction of other teams doesn’t mean anything. I’m not saying that my kids needed to make the others cry, but it might have been nice.

The Post Rapture Update

So I guess it should come as no surprise that three days after the Rapture, I’m still here. But then again, if you are reading this, then so are you, so don’t get all pointy with that finger of judgment there, missy. I did throw around the idea of just not posting ever again and letting you all just assume that I had been rapturized or something. And that would have made all your minds just go insane because how in the hell could I have been one of the chosen ones. Really, I’m a homo, I have a potty mouth, and I just don’t really give a shit about other people. These just aren’t qualities that they are looking for in the promised land.

But some fucked up shit did happen in the day leading up to the big day. My favorite being a parent of a child, who I do not particularly care for, stopped me to ask me if there would be school on Monday. I actually had to stop and think for a minute to make sure I hadn’t gotten my dates wrong and Memorial Day was that day. I have been known to spend an entire day bitching about it only being Tuesday only to find out when I got home that it’s really Thursday, but an entire week is a bit of a stretch for me.

So I ask her why there wouldn’t be school. This was a mistake and I knew it before I opened my mouth, but humoring that sheep is in the job description. This is when she tells me that she just wasn’t sure since the Rapture was this weekend if we would have the kids come to school on Monday.

I want you to tell me exactly how you are supposed to keep a straight face when a parent asks you that. I wanted to ask her if she was worried that she wouldn’t be here after the big event. And if she had said yes, I would have been quick to relieve her of that delusion. Anyone who raised the demon spawn that thought it would be funny to climb over the stall in the bathroom to laugh at the little kindergartener using it need not worry about being picked up by Jesus.

I was hoping that she was joking, but no, she was dead serious. And that was just incredibly depressing. I already feel like I spend my days educating the future McDonald’s workers of America, but meeting their parents just makes me want to cry.

Don’t you think that if the Rapture was going affect school attendance, we would have let you know in advance? As much as I would like all the kids to just disappear in the blink of an eye, it is very unlikely that it is going to happen. I mean God hasn’t been granting any of my wishes lately, I don’t know why he/she/it would start now.

Author! Author!

So, I am a big supporter of creative writing. It’s not taught much in school and that is a great source of sadness to me. So one of the things that’s so great about being a sub is that you don’t always have to follow the lesson plan exactly. This is very good for me because the lesson plans never have any room for using television as a babysitter, which I am a huge advocate of.

I tend to veer away from the lesson plans and I do like to make room for some creative writing projects. Now the success of this is not always the best because like I have explained before I am in a bilingual class, so they tend to write in Spanish. But it’s all good because I have someone translate for me when I really want to know what they wrote about. I only get some of them translated so to keep the kids on their toes. They never know when I am going to have theirs translated so they tend to not write nasty shit. Now, I know you are saying, what the hell could a 1^st grader write that would be nasty. Well, you would be fucking surprised.

Here are just some of the things that my kids have written.

This first one I am not too clear on because my translator that day was laughing so hard that she didn’t really give me an exact translation. The paraphrasing that she gave me goes like this. “My friend Nick played with his horse. He took his horse to the store. He was robbed on the road and he was murdered. I went to the store and found Nick and his horse dead on the side of the road.”

Yeah. That’s some pretty fucked up shit to come out of the mind of a 1^st grader. Since reading this, I have not been able to look at this kid the same way. Especially after seeing the accompanying picture of someone shooting the horse. If you could get that picture out of your head, then you are a better person that I am.

This other girl wasn’t so much scary as just plain mean. The assignment was to write a story about your family. Well, this girl doesn’t really like her family very much. I looked over her shoulder and asked her what she wrote so far. I thought it might have been a lot because it took up half a page, but it was really only one sentence. “My sister is fat and she likes enchiladas.”

Okay. I want you to tell me how it is at all possible to stand there and hear that she wrote that and keep a straight face. It cannot be done. It just cannot be done. If you don’t laugh at that, you are a robot and I do not support that.

Clearly, I am going to have to be more selective when I give out my writing assignment. These kids should not be allowed to have free range in their creative process. Because I really don’t want to be responsible for anymore fictional horses getting murdered.

Whore Couture

Friday was free dress day at school. They do this once a month to celebrate all of the people who had perfect attendance for the whole month. Now the problem with this is that the students don’t really wear their uniform to school in the first place. They don’t even bother wearing the one of six different colored shirts they are allowed and just wear whatever the fuck they want to anyway. This sort of defeats the purpose of having a free dress day. But as it turns out, free dress day is really just an excuse to celebrate Dress Your First Grader Like A Fucking Slut Day.

I am sorry, but there is no excuse for a first grader to come to school dressed in booty shorts. It is just not kosher. It is not even acceptable for a first grader to own a pair of booty shorts. I really don’t enjoy having to spend my day averting my eyes because looking at a seven year old with part of her butt cheek hanging out makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit.

Also what is not cool is sending your daughter to school with the word Juicy written across her ass. That is wrong on so many levels. First of all, there is absolutely no reason for a kid that young (or anyone for that matter) to have words on their ass. And it is also scientifically impossible for a seven year old to be Juicy, so there is no need to advertise that fact. I’m thinking about filing a lawsuit for false advertising. I don’t think I could get a whole lot from the families because they can’t even afford to buy entire pants, but it would be about the principle of the thing. And I may not be the most fashion forward of homosexuals, but isn’t Juicy so 2007.

The boys don’t seem to have a problem with coming to school fully clothed. They all show up to school dressed like cowboys, complete with the belt buckle that is bigger than their heads. This proves to me that it is entirely possible to come to school dressed like a human being and not like they are preparing for a double shift on the street corner.

Since these girls actually get dropped off in the morning, I know that their parents know what they look like. How could it be okay in their minds to send their daughters to school in booty shorts? Not to mention the girl, who is a little on the big side, showing up with butt cheek hanging out and off the shoulder shirt, a la Flashdance.

All I’m really saying is that maybe first grade is a bit early to be training your daughters in the ways of the slut. That is something that is best left for second grade. Or correspondence course. Somewhere that I don’t have to see it.  

A Brief Glimpse Into The Future

Since I have started this job, I have questioned a lot of things about kids. Like if their parents should have ever gotten together in the first place. Or how they can possible have that much to talk about at all time that and that they have to say it immediately or they might explode from some unspoken thought. (Really, I don’t remember having that many topics of conversation in first grade. It was basically just pro recess and anti homework.) The one thing that I will never question again is their resourcefulness.

Take this one kid in my class. One of the most common assignments in the class is to come up with sentences using their vocabulary words. Well, this one kid does not want to do it. He just doesn’t. It’s like I have asked him to cut off his own finger with the level of moaning and groaning I get when I tell him to do it.

Well, everyday is a struggle to get him to do his work. And today was a special kind of adventure that would send a nun to the bottle. So this portion of the class lasts an hour and a half. I was generous and gave them 40 minutes to write ten sentences. (They say generous, I say lazy and didn’t feel like doing anything else.) For 25 minutes this kid sat and stared at a blank sheet of paper. Finally I had enough and told him that if he didn’t do his work, he was losing recess for the rest of the week. This is usually a death sentence to a kid, but this one seems to be immune to this threat.

So I could almost see the gears turning in his head as he plots. He decided he was not going to do his work and there was nothing I could do that would make him. So what does he do? He bites the tip of his pencil off. Now really, I wouldn’t have let him get away with that since there are about 700 pencils scattered somewhere throughout the classroom as a result of kids just throwing them on the floor when they get a little dull. So I just gave him another pencil and told him to write or face the impending doom of the principal’s office.

Well that was before I saw that there was a whole other level to his plan that I didn’t imagine. He just opens his mouth to show me that the tip of the pencil is now lodged nice and tightly between his teeth. Oh, he knew what he was doing. Because I had to rush him to the nurse to try to get it out and of course she couldn’t because it’s a tiny little lead point stuck between his teeth. There is only so much a pair of tweezers could do.

So sure enough, we end up having to sit in the nurse’s office so long that school ended and he had to run off to catch his bus. And guess what didn’t get done. His work. He’s a little genius.

This is the kind of evil I deal with all day. The world is just not ready for this kind of evil genius. I hope you prepare yourself for the day when this little boy grows up and becomes our new dictator.

Hola

So I am done training for my new job. I am just going to say that after working two shifts, I have found that calling this a job is an insult to jobs everywhere. It is like the easiest thing I have ever done. I actually slept through part of my shift and not only didn’t get in trouble for it, my coworkers told me that I could bring a pillow with me next time. And I get paid for it.

But now that I am not in training, I am back at school. The school I am at has actually locked me into a long term position in the same class. This is actually a good thing because it means I always have a job. The bad part of it is that it is a bilingual class. Now I am sure I have documented many times here that I don’t speak Spanish. It’s just this really weird setup that I don’t quite understand, but I am willing to put up with for a higher paycheck.

Now being in a bilingual class when you don’t speak Spanish is like being stuck in a really bad episode of Dora the Explorer. That seems a little redundant because every episode of Dora that I have ever watched (and by watched I mean fallen asleep with the television on and woken up to it playing) has been atrocious. And now that is my life, except it doesn’t have that little homo Diego in it.

The kicker is these kids totally speak English just fine. I’ve heard them do it. But when I come around it’s all No Hablo Ingles. Then what proceeds is a thoroughly unproductive lesson taught primarily in fucked up Spanglish that just leaves me more confused then when we started. The cycle just repeats itself until the kids finally get annoyed with me and start speaking English like they have miraculously received the gift of tongues.

But sadly, their gift doesn’t last very long because the next day it’s all No Hablo Ingles again. It’s like the battle between good and evil, except I don’t really know which side is which. All I know is the day usually ends with me slamming my head repeatedly into the board while the kids stare at me uncomprehendingly.

I’ve taken to smuggling a DVD player and my massive collection of Disney movies into school. It’s interesting how the kids claim to understand a single word I say, but they know every world of The Lion King. So yes, some days I say fuck it and let Disney be the teacher.

Besides, movie time give me a change to rest the giant bruise on my head. It’s getting pretty bad. I’m starting to look like one of those creatures out of Avatar.

More World Domination

I’ve decided that I am going about this the wrong way. I’ve been bitching about things that have been going on in the classroom that quite literally make me want to pull my hair out. And seeing as I am bald, that isn’t really a good thing. Because then I am just digging at skin and then I am going to look like one of those horror movie villains and that just won’t be good because I do not look good in a red and black stripped sweater and fedora.

But what I have not realized until this moment is that I have an untapped commodity here. What is the one thing that I have always wanted my entire life? Well, yes, Lance Bass in my bed, but that’s not what I am talking about here. I am talking about minions. I want an army of them. It is the one essential element that I need in my quest for world domination.

Don’t lie. You totally want to be in a world where I am in charge. I’m talking full on party, while all the people we don’t like are made to do all of the grunt work. And there would be no more problems with high gas prices because there would be no need for cars. Why the hell do we need cars when we are going to have muscular men carry us every where. Yes, it will take a little longer, but imagine how much fun it is going to be to watch them sweat.

Okay, a little off topic there. See none of that will come to pass until I get me some minions. And I have a classroom full of kids who are perfect for the job. I mean really, how skilled do you have to be when your main job requirement is to fetch me shit?

So now I just have formulate a plan to somehow get these children on my side. It shouldn’t be too hard since the kids actually seem to like for some unknown reason. I can’t figure it out myself because I actually have to be mean to them most of the time because they are pretty terrible in the classroom. But they do, so it should be too hard to mold them into a suitable army.

So be on the lookout for when my formidable army comes to your town. You will, of course have no defense against them because who is going to harm cute little kids, no one that’s who. We will be like the Borg. My army will be recruiting the kids in all of your elementary schools. And then we will be truly unstoppable.

If you were smart, you would join my side now. Some of the noises these kids make are considered a form of torture in 37 states. It’s a weapon of mass destruction that I am totally willing to use in my quest. I am, of course, always taking applications for minions. Join now or face my minions.

Does No One Look At The School Supply List Anymore

Dear sweet baby Popeye’s Biscuit, I am so glad that it is Spring Break. While I am usually not so much about school vacations because I don’t get paid during them. And we all know how much I like the money. It helps me with so many things, namely the acquisition of more Popeye’s Biscuits. But I really needed a vacation from the little ones. Now I know why there are so many vacations during the school year. Prolonged exposure to children will increase the time needed in a padded cell, so they give the teachers numerous vacations to keep them from having a nervous breakdown and start giving everyone they walk by F’s. (That’s so the way I’m going to go.)

But I would like to use this opportunity to hopefully change some things about the way things are going at school. I mean this could be a chance to change my attitude but really what are the chances of that happening anytime soon. Instead, I am going to work very hard at changing the shit that goes on in the classroom.

The one thing that I really don’t fucking understand is how the kids are just physically incapable of having a pencil with them. No a single one. And if some miracle the kids come to school with a pencil, the damn thing doesn’t have an eraser because they apparently thought it would be a good idea to bite the motherfucking thing off. No, not chew it up. Bite the thing completely off. I mean I know the cafeteria food sucks ass, but come on it’s got to taste moderately better then an eraser.

So that is what my days have been like for the past couple of weeks. Basically filled with classrooms full of kids who don’t have a fucking pencil. But here’s the kicker. They don’t bother to tell me that they don’t have a pencil until after I have gone through all the trouble to explain what their assignment is. Then it’s all, “I have no pencil.” “Well, then what the hell have you been doing for the past twenty minutes while I’ve been talking?” “I didn’t have a pencil, so I just sat there.” And then I go sit down and proceed to bang my head into the teacher’s desk for the next hour and the kids don’t have to do the assignment. I think that was the plan all along.

Or then there are the times when the teacher is all prepared for such an eventuality and have a million spare pencils lying around the room. But then comes the problem that the kids have no idea how to actually use a pencil without breaking it after writing one letter. Then comes the hour long ritual of sharpening the pencil. Do you know that children do not know how the fuck to work a crank sharpener? It’s just completely beyond their capabilities. And don’t even think about having an electric pencil sharpener. It will be broken within five seconds. These kids can break shit in ways that the inventor never imagined that things could be broken.

This would explain why I have a huge blister on my finger. Because I had to stand there for 20 minutes sharpening pencils. And yes, I am extremely bitter about this. (Among other things.) Because now, my students’ incompetence is leaving marks on my skin.

So parents, I beg of you. Send your kids to school with a fucking pencil. It’s on the goddamn school supply list.

And since a great deal of the kids I sub for are Hispanic, I am going to send this message out in Spanish as well. Sendo your kidsos to schoolo witho ao fuckingo pencilo. Shito.