Folderol And Anal Leakage

It has been one of those days when the universe was conspiring against me, keeping me from a peaceful Friday of wrapping up loose ends at work and leaving the building by 3:30 to go make a payment on the Mansion. Uh huh. Nothing grandiose planned for Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's weekend. No concert or casino trip or movie or dinner or trivia match or wild uninhibited party where teachers pass out and others write on them with magic markers. Nope. Nothing elaborate.

It began, as every weekday, with Mrs. HM trying to rout the #1 son out of bed without using a pointy stick. Upon arriving in the parking lot five minutes behind schedule, and poking #1 with a pointy finger to tell him to get out of T-Hoe and enter Newmentia, Loretta Lynn started singing to notify HM that Basementia Buddy wanted to chat. That meant another five minutes in the parking lot before going inside to begin the workday. While trying to prepare educational materials before the bell, in charged Charger with a science project board, and informed Mrs. HM that he and Concussor would be working on their project after school. To which Mrs. HM informed him not on her watch, because she was leaving at 3:30.

The morning brought a kid 30 minutes tardy for 1st hour, who entered wearing a hat, which is verboten in Newmentia, but drew attention away from his neon green boxers that boldly peeked out of his pants. The hat matter was soon corrected, but Mrs. HM could not stomach a foray into the sagging waistband issue.

Second hour showed up with a bright shiny sunflower-seed issue and commenced to a confiscated phone, all wrapped up with an I-went-to-take-my-driver's-test-wearing-a-shirt-with-a-rebel-flag-and-when-I-walked-in-I-saw-a-big-black-lady-behind-the-counter-and-felt-bad bow.

Third hour presented Mrs. HM with the Turkey Talker. This dude never brings work to get help with, which is the main purpose of the class. He passes the time asking if anyone has a game camera, some tires, arrows with real feathers, a good phone, and various eclectic items for sale. Today he was allowed to use the old computer in the corner to look up the starting date of turkey season, just on the off chance that would silence him. Au contraire. That meant he was 10 feet closer to Mrs. HM, making it easier to foist his running conversation about turkeys and hunting on her unwelcoming ears. Insult was added to injury with the discovery of eight days worth of ISS assignments stuffed into Mrs. HM's mailbox.

Fourth hour kicked off with a seller of Girl Scout cookies waiting at the door of Do-Not Land, a seller who is not a Girl Scout, and led to a discussion of the merits of Thin Mints and Tag-A-Longs. A discussion usurped by Charger, who demanded to know if an unbeatable force met with an immovable object, which would reign supreme, the unbeatable force of Batman, or the immovable object of The Joker. Charger did not like Mrs. HM's answer of Batman, because he was the star.

It was reading day, which meant lunch at 10:38, and a wasted 30 minutes that had to be spent reading instead of grading some of the 102 assignments that Mrs. HM corrects each day all by her lonesome once the class has progressed to the guided practice part of the lesson.

Fifth hour was missing 20% of the students, which only meant more make-up work to sort out and grade late. The discussion of Things I Have Fished Out Of Toilets was not quite so uplifting as one might expect. At least the facilitator learned that toilet water is not really cleaner than regular water if you are talking about the toilet BOWL water instead of the toilet TANK water.

Plan time was taken up with the custodian philosophizing while shaking his dust broom, which Mrs. HM's nasal cavities and recently-recovering lungs found quite disagreeable. Assignments were rounded up for home-bounders, papers graded, scores recorded, lessons planned, and bills written for later payment.

Seventh hour was a cacophony of near-full-moon, Friday-afternoon frenzy, leaving in its wake a pile of papers yet to grade before the 3:30 get-away.

In the hallway after the final bell, Charger joined up with #1 to text Concussor, who was out sick, and Arch Nemesis stopped by to inquire as to whether Concussor was suffering from anal leakage, or what.

Mrs. HM escaped back into the classroom with that diversion, and proceeded to grade papers until #1 demanded Twinkie money, only to return with no Twinkies and only a quarter to show for the dollar he had extorted. #1 declared that Arch Nemesis and Mr. H were waling on the copier, and absentmindedly told him the snack machine was broken AFTER he put three quarters into it. HM told him to dash back up there and demand that they wale on the snack machine to get her 75 cents back.

Just then Arch Nemesis and Mr. H showed up in the classroom to ridicule the Old Red Gradebook (She Ain't What She Used To Be) and otherwise harass and hinder HM until LunchBuddy popped in and had to hear about the anal leakage. The folderol continued until HM consigned #1 to Mr. H's trivia team for the evening for the price of $10.

And the 3:30 deadline came and went. Mrs. HM's job is never done.