Rubber Chickens, Mr. Bones & the New Normal

I suppose you could blame it on the rubber chicken.

Or perhaps the sparkly tiara.

Or maybe even the pink fuzzy magic wand with its awesome magic wand sound.

Perhaps it was any of those things or maybe it was all of those things…But surely it was something that must have desensitized my students to my wackiness, and my wacky hall-monitoring, rubber-chicken, hand puppet-loving compadre Rhonda.

You see, my friend Rhonda borrowed a skeleton from the science department to teach some health-related something. (There's those darn tootin' things again.)

Well, she couldn't very well leave Mr. Slim Jim Bones in the classroom because experience has taught her that if one were to leave Mr. Slim Jim Bones alone in the classroom, well, bad things happen. Things like Mr. Slim Jim Bones would be missing some bones. Or worse, his bones would be detached and re-attached in places they most certainly don't belong.

So instead of leaving him unsupervised, Missy Rhonda wheels Mr. Slim Jim Bones out into the hall to assist with our hall monitoring. And there we stood with Mr. Slim Jim Bones with his left, bony arm around Missy Rhonda while I held Mr. Slim Jim's right hand.

We stood at our hall monitoring post before first period… and, well, the children walked right on by. Not a peep.

Between first and second period, I upped the ante a bit and donned my tiara since Mr. Slim Jim Bones was wearing a pink fuzzy one. All the children walked right on by. Not a peep except for one boy who said "awesome!"

When passing period was over, I went into my second period class with my sparkly tiara, and no one said a word. I was slightly disheartened.

When the bell for third period rang, all the children walked by apparently oblivious to Mr. Slim Jim Bones except one girl who merely pointed at us and smiled.

Fourth period… Not a peep. Not even one.

Fifth period? Nothing. Nadda, Zilch.

And so it pretty much went the rest of the day.

I finally turned to Rhonda and my other hall monitoring buddies and asked, "What part of this looks remotely like normal behavior to you?"

It took about three days, a pair of 3-D glasses and a pink 3-day for the Cure bracelet before the children acknowledged Mr. Slim Jim Bones.

Jeepers Creepers, how are we supposed to capture kid's hearts if it's this tough capturing their attention?