Saturdays, Teens & Competition

Before 8 in the morning, I managed to misplace my phone (twice), my day’s schedule (once) and my sunglasses (once). As an added bonus, I also managed to annoy two of my coworkers (and yeah, that probably happened more than once).

My six weeks grades are due in less than 48 hours, and instead of grading the stack of papers stashed in my blue school bag, I am sitting on the floor of the fourth floor of the student union building at the University of North Texas in Denton pondering the verb “to be.” (I’ll get to that later.)

I am here with four of my DIs (Darling Inspirations) for regional journalism writing competition. Two of whom are sequestered in the newswriting competition while the other two are lying on the floor blocking the stairwell door as well as the pathway to the soda machines. I’m fairly certain all this violates some sort of fire code, and I’m absolutely certain it violates my directive not to block the passageway.

But it’s Saturday and I’m sure there’s some sort of mandatory suspension of the rules regarding teens, noon and Saturdays. If not, there probably should be.

So here we sit blocking an assortment of egresses before noon on a Saturday in various stages of relaxation on carpet that looks vintage 1995-ish and most certainly contains at least a decades worth of cooties.  Although I’m not too worried about a fire evacuation, I am a tad bit worried about the cootie thing and slightly more worried about what might happen should there be some sort of stampede to the soda machines.

It could get ugly.

I really can’t complain too much though about the DIs lack of following instructions to move aside. Like I said, I should be grading papers, but instead, I sit here pondering what year the carpet was installed, how long cooties can live in fibers and how to rewrite this post without using so many “to be” verbs. I’d ask the boys, but I don’t want for them to strain themselves too much before their contest. Their brains might implode.

That could get ugly, too.

The boys started talking to me, but I couldn’t hear a word they said. I could only see their mouths move blah blah blah blah blah since I was listening to my iPod.

Surely there’s some sort of mandatory suspension of the rules regarding teachers, noon and Saturdays. If not, there probably should be.  I was going to ignore them, but decided against it. What if there was a stampede? What if they knew the answer to the cootie question? What if my hair was on fire?

Now that definitely could get ugly as well.

And finally, about those “to be” verbs—Well, I think, perhaps, we should just let them be.