Rock Stars, Dr. Seuss & Why The Chicken and I Belong

Wowie zowie kowie.

Friday marked the very last day for teachers. I’d do a little dance of joy, but after my disastrous foray into the dancing Zumba realm, you’ll be lucky to get me to tap my toe.

Besides, those of us in the teaching biz (and especially those of us in the publications adviser biz) all know that there really never ever is a last day for teachers.

Good grief, already I’m bebopping up to school on Monday to teach a brief little in-service on blogging to the technology staff. (I trust the irony of me teaching an in-service isn’t lost on most of you. If so, go here to read about how swimmingly well that worked out for me the last time. Hails bails, just read the little promo blurb for my blog that begins with “One without the universe…)

Well, all this in-service talk got me to thinking (and we all know what happens when that happens) about my district’s end of the year shebang in the auditorium. While waiting for the show to get underway, I did what I always do--I started making a mental list of all the things I’d rather be doing and all the things I needed to be doing. You know, all those important things so I wouldn’t get any official looking thing stuffed into my “Things That Will Get You Fired” folder.

Except, of course, one of the things I was supposed to be doing was exactly what I was doing--sitting in the auditorium waiting for the end of the year shebang to get underway. Just when my head started to explode from my mental listmania, the smoke machine started, the lights dimmed, the music cranked up and the superintendent along with the principals from all the schools popped out on stage in full rock star make up and gear singing Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out!”

Here’s the picture of my principal to prove it…



I must admit I sang along to every word (and I wasn’t the only one either).

The next day we administered the last batch of semester exams. As with most schools, kiddos kept conning their teachers into letting them out of class once they completed their finals. Instead of issuing a snarly, snarky warning, one of the assistant principals sent out this email…

“Do not send them to the gym.
Do not send her out with him.
Do not send them to the john.
Do not send them to the lawn.
Do not send them here nor there.
Do not send them anywhere.
I know that this sounds like a real big bummer,
But we're trying to keep the lid on the boiling pot, just until SUMMER!”

When the dismissal bell rang, I found myself telling the kiddos (in Dr. Seuss Marvin K. Mooney fashion), “The time has come, the time is now, just go go go I don’t care how…”

The following day (Friday) was a teacher workday and the very “last day.” By the afternoon, the building was fairly deserted by the time I packed the five boxes of stuff I needed for the summer--stuff like the contest entries that needed mailing, stuff like permission forms for the 24 darlings I’m taking to summer workshop, stuff like the purchase orders I still needed to fill out for next year, stuff like the rectangular box of planning material for next year’s yearbook, stuff like my notes for Monday’s in-service.

You know, important stuff. (The other, really, really important stuff like my tiara and wand, I locked up in the cabinet.) Before I left though, I grabbed the rubber chicken and plopped him in the back of my trusty blue mini-van and thought, “Geewillikers, I really do love this job.”

No, really. I do.

No Naysaying Nellie here. No siree, Missy.

After the Rock Star thing and the Dr. Seuss thing (and in spite of all the other things), me and the chicken, well, we fit right in.