Train Wrecks, Dr. Laura & Throwing Tinkerbell Under the Bus

T-minus 5-4-3-2-1… Ta-da… another school year almost ended… just a few more days left and I am free at last… but before the prospect of summer consumes me, we must address and clarify a few things. I know in some twisted, warped way, you’re dying to know how the entire yearbook distribution thing worked out. It’s like watching a train wreck in slow-mo. You say you don’t want to watch, but you do. You don’t want to know, but I betcha I can catch you taking a sneaky peak.

It’s the reason why I like to listen to such shows as Dr. Laura. While it may suck to be me on any particular day, it sure sucks more to be them… In some twisted way, I find comfort in that. So let’s clear up a few misconceptions…


The Publishing Fairies & the Journalism gods
Typo-seeking Tinkerbell does not live in the publications room waiving her cute little fairy wand banishing all mistakes. If she did, I’d wring her little neck for falling down on the job and publicly sacrifice her to the journalism gods.

But whoa Nellie, before we willy-nilly go throwing poor Tinkerbell under the bus, let’s focus on the fact that with 264 pages, more than 3,000 photographs, 100,000 plus gajillion words and well over 2,000 names something somewhere will be wrong.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

There I feel better.

Oh, dear me, according to my VP of Humor Control, I’m starting to sound, well, a bit bitter and, well, “negative.”

OK, OK, OK… Let’s take a positive look-see at all of this. I think we got about 99 percent right. After all, we really only had two complaints and we did sell out of all our extra books in a record two and half hours. I know that doesn’t make the 1 percenters feel any better. All I can do is say I’m sorry that we were/are such big, fat stupidheads (and, yes, I suppose that does stop the Stupidhead Clock on the right).

And perhaps next time, I’ll suggest that they listen to Dr. Laura, too.

Sad Sacks & Snakebites
OK, OK, OK, I admit it. I spent most of last week feeling sorry for myself and yelling at anyone and everyone who would listen. The staffers just sighed and did what they do best--ignore me--while I continually mumbled how children suck the life right out of you.

And, then the really, really, really (did I say really?) absolutely fab-u-lously nice art teacher who is next to my classroom came to school with her arm in a sling and her hand swollen three times its normal size.

Snake bite.

As in Copperhead… as in poisonous snake.

Suddenly sorting all those yearbooks and listening to the naysayers wasn’t so bad after all, ya know what I mean?

And then my BFF from the east coast called telling my something about how there were goats in her school parking lot and how she had to grab them by the horns and try to toss them back over the fence. Jeez.

Uh-oh gotta go… I think it’s time to listen to Dr. Laura.

Afghanistan, Channeling Forrest Gump & Uh-Oh

I believe Art Linkletter and Bill Cosby coined the phrase “Kids say the darndest things” and that pretty much has been my week. Let’s just hit the high points (or low points) depending upon whether you’re one of those people who look at the glass as half full or half empty. I’ve got to warn you, though, you probably ought to sit down for this. I guess in our crisis rating scale we can call these “situations.”

Situation #1…
I was showing photograph #15 from the Washington Post to my photojournalism class, and I was pointing out composition elements (yes, with my rubber chicken) and reading the caption, “A boy carries jars of water in Kabul, Afghanistan…”

In the background were three women wearing burkas.

“What are those women wearing?” one student asked.

“I think they’re called burkas,” I said.

“Why are they wearing them?” the student asked.

“Because they have to. It’s part of their culture…” I said.

“Well, I wouldn’t,” the student said.

“Yeah, you would,” someone else piped in.

“No, I wouldn’t,” the student said.

“You’d have to…” I said.

“They’d probably kill you if you didn’t,” someone else chimed in.

“Well, I’d just leave then,” the student said.

“You can’t,” I said trying desperately to turn this into one of those “teachable moments” that we all hear/read about.

“It’s not like in this country where you can just move out of state,” I continued.

“I’d leave any way,” the student said.

“There’s no place to go,” I said.

“I’d go to Iraq,” the student said.

There are lots of things I could have said. All of which I’m pretty sure would fit rather nicely in my “Things That Will Get You Fired” folder. So instead, I was thankful that the room was semi-dark because I think (OK, OK, I’m pretty sure), I reflexively rolled my eyes (something I’ve perfected by hangin’ with my teen-angst peeps), sighed and thought it best to just change the slide and move on.


Situation #2
And speaking of moving on, I just wanted everyone to know that I attended a meeting (one of many this past week) in which the concept of self esteem (or self of steam as love to call it) reared its ugly head. And, to my credit, not once did I launch into my YMCA-Yoda-speech. (Now that could be because it’s all a part of that kinder, gentler me, or perhaps it was because my “Things That Will Get You Fired” folder is getting bigger. You decide.) Of course all this pent-up stress, according to my publications staffers, has caused me to sporadically channel Forrest Gump’s voice while on newspaper deadline this week. I’m not quite sure how that happened.

But somehow, just somehow, I don’t think that’s a very good thing. Makes me wonder how long my counter (located on the right sidebar) will keep ticking.

Situation #3
Now that I’m through with our Issue #4 deadline, I tried to get caught up on the goings on in the real world.

I had an “Uh-Oh” moment.

The Lewisville district attorney’s office decided not to prosecute a 7th grader who got in all kinds of trouble for picking up his teacher’s bottle of hand sanitizer, rubbing the gel on this hands and smelling it–or rather apparently inhaling it “heavily.” (You can read the story here.) Apparently there are dimwits out there beyond my little world that think drinking hand sanitizer is f-u-n. (“Hey, bro, forget the tequila, how about a shot of that Black Raspberry Vanilla Hand Sanitizer? Or that Brown Sugar Fig?” Jeez, Louise, what’s next?)

It was an Uh-Oh moment because I have some rather nice smelling Bath & Body Works lotion on my desk for kids to use. And, I must say, the kids do smell it. Hails Bails, they probably inhale it heavily. But that’s lotion, so I guess it doesn’t count.

It was also an Uh-Oh moment because there is that cute little bottle of Aveda blue oil. You know, the one I have in my top drawer, just above and to the left of the drawer that houses the “Things That Will Get You Fired” folder.

The $12.50 blue oil is one of those natural stress-relieving oils that, as the Aveda site says, helps “dissolve tension and raise energy levels with the balancing aromas of refreshing peppermint and soothing blue camomile.” The site also says to “breathe in the aroma deeply.”

Uh-Oh.

My news editor and editor-in-chief became instant fans–or addicts.

See what I mean.

Uh-Oh.

I’m thinking I might need to move that bottle down and to the right…

Yep, right into that “Things” folder.