The NeverEnding School Year

Like an Oscar-winning actor hogging the microphone, like a little-known low-talking commencement speaker at graduation, like a sisterhood of the traveling pants pact among women now in their 80s, like an opinionated tirade by Rosie O'Donnell, like the Vietnam War, like the career of Gilbert Gottfried, like a 7-year-old telling you about the movie he just saw, like Bubba describing shrimp to Forrest Gump, like the winning touchdown pass spiraling through the receiver's hands and out of the end zone, like Sue Hawk casting her vote for Richard Hatch in the very first Survivor, like a pilot at Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport...this school year has gone on too long.

I am tired of students asking for a new seating chart, complaining about the new seating chart, begging to move the chairs back the way they were, complaining that the chairs are back the way they were, wanting to work in partners, complaining about their partners, and just generally demanding the opposite of whatever they have.

I am tired of students carrying their books to class when I have announced and written on the board that they won't need them this week. I am tired of students 'forgetting' their books when I have announced and written on the board that they will definitely need their books all week. I am tired of students asking, "When do we get out of here?" after telling them from Day 1 that I am not their personal timekeeper. I am tired of students declaring, "Sixteen days of school left!" when anybody with ten fingers and eight toes can count that there are 18 days left.

I must keep chanting: THREE MONDAYS LEFT!

At an important meeting after school today, a meeting in which I had to cough into my elbow, my Arch Nemesis mumbled, "Swine flu." Tomorrow, as she walks down the hall every hour, leaving her classroom unattended, I am going to do this, in sounds, not words: "Cough, hack, oink oink oink."

Don't mess with the pig, or you get the squiggly tail.