Deadlines, Purses & Onions

We’ve just about wrapped up the yearbook, mailing off the almost-last batch of page proofs. However, it’s hard to enjoy the brief lull because, of course, newspaper has entered into another deadline.

And deadlines, we know, for both publications brings some rather “interesting” things.

While trying to finish up the last batch of yearbook proofs, I overheard my business editor arguing rather loudly with the yearbook editor.

“Is everything OK?” I asked when he walked into the main classroom.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s all under control.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Yep, everything’s OK,” he said, grabbing the editor’s purse and slinging it over his shoulder.

“Well, everything except the fact that I’m carrying a purse,” he added as he walked back into the publications room.

I thought it best to just keep working.

And, then, of course, there’s the newspaper staff. My newspaper editor and editor in chief have been working very hard on a difficult story. I told them if the story didn’t make me teary-eyed then they haven’t done their job. Now, please keep in mind, I’m not much of a crier at all, and they know this.

My entertainment editor, who should have been working on her pages, told the girls, “You’re going to need some strategically placed onions under her eyes.”

But Pizza Andy had a better idea: “Hmmm, does this paper smell like tear gas?”

Lime green boxes, Dove chocolates & messages

I was sorting through the inch and half high stack of yearbook pages that were supposed to have been finished when I caught sight of the lime green-filled box. For those of you blessed to not be a yearbook or newspaper adviser or have the nomenclature “adviser” anywhere near your name, the lime green-filled box on a yearbook page is synonymous with ground zero of a nuclear explosion.

Ok, so maybe that’s a tad bit of a hyperbole, but that little lime green-filled box might as well say, “I-know-a-photograph-goes-here-but-I-don’t-have-one-
and-I-hope-you-won’t-notice-that-I’m-a-big-fat-loser-and-instead-think-you-
spilled-guacamole-here.”

Jeez.

So there I sat staring at the lime green-filled box on the panel pages–pages that contained the class mugshots, and therefore, must be turned in all together…in sequence.

Did I say “together”? …Did I mention the phrase “in sequence”?… Yes, these pages must be turned in together because the publishing plant flows the mugs, well, sequentially. You know, one page after the other. Go figure. So you can’t turn in pages 101, 102, 103, 104, but skip 105 and turn in 106. Nope. No can do. Can we say, “all together” all together?

So there I sat staring. Ok, make that glaring, at the page with the offending lime green-filled box, saying to no one in particular, but everyone in general, “Y’all are wearing me thin.”

I then popped a Dove chocolate in my mouth, you know, one of those tasty, heart-shaped candies with gooey caramel inside and a nifty little message on the foil that says things like “There’s no excuse not to dream” and “Keep the promises you make to yourself.”

“Hey,” I sort of yelled, “make that ‘Y’all are wearing me fat…’”

“Get it?” I asked. “Or, it could be ‘Y’all are wearing me phat?’ You know, with a ‘P’ as in ‘I’m cool…’”

To be honest, there was a lot of eye rolling at that point, a few groans and some others who opted to hide behind their computer screens and pretend not to hear anything.

“Well, you are,” I said to no one in particular. “All this stress is making me eat chocolate, and, uh, making me fat.”

Three Dove chocolates and messages later got me to thinking that perhaps I should go ahead and splurge for my own “four unique” three line tin foil Dove messages. With 17 characters per line, well, just imagine the things I could do. And all for only $59.99. What a deal.

Mine would go something like this…

Message #1…

This is not the
YMCA I don’t have
to be your friend

Message #2…
Quit making
my head
explode!

Message #3…
Don’t bother me
unless your hair
is on fire

And, of course, message #4…
You’re wearing
me fat!

Other Duties As Assigned…

As I sat outside in 90-degree or so heat (this is Texas remember) supervising my one hour and 45 minute Homecoming Float Duty, it just made me run through that mental list of “Things We Didn’t Go to College For” that bounces around the back of my brain from time to time. But with teachers flanking both sides of me sitting in those “Soccer Mom” folding chairs and grading papers, my friend the Spanish teacher glanced over my shoulder as I compiled my list and duly noted that a better title would be: “What they really mean when they say, ‘Other duties as assigned…’”

And, as usual she’s right, so there it is, and here we are with a list culled from years of experience, a number of teachers and from a variety of school districts.

Other duties as assigned…

• Playing yearbook "bingo" in order to sort through 1,000-plus books by teacher name and an assorted array of customized extras in order to distribute the book. Trust me on this one, you don't want to know the rules. There's never a winner.

• Stuffing tootsie rolls in empty rolls of toilet paper and wrapping them up for cheerleaders to throw to fans at football games.

• “Designing” receipts through all manner and forms of technology for items purchased for kids after misplacing the original receipts.

• Ascertaining whether “Lick Lamar” was too graphic to put on a lollipop when trying to come up with a theme for the Friday night football game against Arlington Lamar High School.

• Luring kangaroo mice with sunflower seeds and popping trashcans over them because we legally couldn’t set mouse traps or bait.

• Taking the temperature of vents throughout the school because no one in maintenance (located in a separate building, on a different street, with working temperature controls) actually believed the air blows at a frigid 53 degrees. Instead, the infamous “they” believed the teaching staff was comprised of menopausal, hormonally whacked-out females suffering from faulty temperature sensations.

• Chasing chickens (yes, real ones, not the wacky rubber ones) down the hallway after some end-of-the-year prankster put them in the girls’ bathroom.

• Arranging cookies on cocktail napkins for parents at the end of an assembly just so we could thieve a snickerdoodle or two.

• Rewriting about 100 statistics from the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test results on a blank sheet of paper during teacher in-service (staff development) to prove we can (a) find the data (b) accurately record the information and (c) waste all morning doing it.

• Trying to teach a computer class for six weeks without computers. Unless that was part of the “monitor and adjust” curriculum of Education 101.

• Being issued not red pens, whiteboard markers or paper clips but a yellow and black flashlight as the only piece of official equipment to cope with the anticipated power outages from low-bid construction crews hired to renovate the school. And, yes, of course, they were used.

• Painting [substitute your mascot’s name here] paws for a mile in preparation for the Homecoming Parade.

• Being assigned to the Noise Patrol to confiscate air horns and other noisemakers at graduation. Or, better yet, being pressed into duty as part of the Gum Squad–that’s G-U-M not G-U-N–to make would-be graduates spit out their chewy blobs before being allowed to bebop down the aisles to “Pomp and Circumstance.”

I swear all this is true…I couldn’t make this stuff up even if I tried. Sure would like to hear some of your stories. You can post them here or you can email me at mybellringers@gmail.com.