The Giveaway

You know what really annoys me? These holiday giveaway shows. Oprah used to do one. She gave away the coolest stuff. One time, The View tried to copy her but gave away shit like "Domino's Pizza" deliveries and crap. Well, Dr. Phil is doing a spin-off of the show, and let me tell you, these people are walking away with thousands of dollars of stuff - awesome nintendo equipment, a computer, music entertainment centers, tons of kitchen appliances, a dyson vacuum... you name it, they're getting it. They also gave away a queen-size mattress and bed spring. Waterford crystal containers. Shoes and bags and make-up sets and guitars and CDs. I'm actually pretty impressed by their giveaways.

Doogie Howser just showed up and gave away free airline tickets.

Fucking hell, everyone also just got a $500 credit card gift card.

So why am I annoyed? Because I'm watching it, and what joy is there in watching a bunch of people receiving gifts when you're getting absolutely nothing?

Let me tell you: there's none.

Going Postal

Today was One of Those Days. I felt it from the second I got up. Even though I didn't get up late, I was still running behind. I found that what was really driving me nuts today was absolutely anything and everything, which made me realize that I was lacking patience today. This is never good for a Monday, let alone the Monday before school vacation, let alone a week before Christmas. I found this out the hard way.

After a really annoying day at school with the "children," all I wanted to do was mail my Christmas cards. I know, I know, it's already December 18th, but whatever. They're going out. And I figured, if I got them out today, people could have them by, at the latest, the end of the week. So I figured that at 3 PM, the post office would not be busy.

I figured dead wrong.

The line was almost out the door when I got there. I can't say "when I got inside," because I had not even entered the building before I was already having issues. Normally, I can at least get in the building before I start sparring with morons.

Well, today, I couldn't even get inside. Apparently, with all the issues of "terrorist threats" in the mail system, they take post OFFICE security pretty seriously. You know how those detector things at the entrances of stores are jokes? Those things buzz off for any old reason, to the point that nobody ever stops you anymore. It's ridiculous. It's like a commonly accepted thing: the detector will buzz as a false alarm, and so nobody from the store bothers going to check on the customer. This happens to me all the time because the Gap sews its sensors into clothes in the weirdest spots. I'm always forgetting to search for them (can't put them in an obvious place, can you, Gap?!) and so I set off those detectors like it's my job. Aside from the momentary, "Jesus Christ, that's loud," it's not too much of an inconvenience because NOBODY CHECKS anything anymore.

Well, nobody except post office workers.

As I walked into the place today, the buzzers went off. I slapped my forehead - literally - and said to myself, "Shit!" as I realized I was wearing new jeans that probably still had the sensor tag behind my knee or something. I figured it was no big deal and I went to get in line.

"EXCUSE ME!" SCREAMED some random post office guy. His name was Randall. I kid you not. Randall.

I looked over at Randall.

"Yes, you. You in the kelly green sweater." (Yes, he said "kelly green." I think it was more of an evergreen, but I didn't want to start with Randall.)

"Umm, yes?"

"You set off the sensor."

"Oh, yeah," I said. I probably looked pretty surprised, since this is the first time someone's come over to check on a sensor going off. I couldn't fault him for this. Yet.

"Well, you can't come in the post office until we figure out what's buzzing."

"What?"

"You can't come in. You set off the sensor."

"Are you kidding?"

"Miss, we don't kid around at the post office."

"So you are seriously telling me that I cannot come in the post office today?"

"Why'd you set off the sensor, miss?" (Now, don't you think, Randall, that it would have been more customer-friendly and effective to begin the conversation with this, rather than the incendiary "You are not coming in the post office!" edict? I think so.)

"I think I set it off because of my clothes," I said. "The Gap has this ridiculous habit of sewing their sensors into their clothes in hard to find spots."

"I don't think that's ridiculous," said Randall. For some reason, this comment sticks out to me as THE comment, as in, THE comment when I had this feeling that Randall was going to be a problem for me.

"Well," I continued, "the point is, they're not in the obvious 'you have to take this off before wearing' spots, so I sometimes forget."

"Doesn't that create a little problem for you," he said and clucked.

"Well, not usually," I admitted. "You're actually the first person who's checked!" I said this with a friendly "can you believe that?" attitude, but I don't think Randall's IQ allowed him to fully grasp my "tone." Instead, I think he was focusing on understanding the words.

"And why don't they?" he asked.

"Umm, I don't know," I said. At this point, about five people had walked into the post office, buzzer free, and gone ahead of me in line. I brought this up to Randall.

"Can't let you in the post office until we figure out what's setting off the buzzer," he said.

"But I told you what is."

"You're going to have to remove the sensor before you come in," he said. "It's for national security."

Maybe this was not the best move, but when he said this, I laughed.

"I can't do that," I said to him. "It's in my jeans."

Poor Randall actually looked perplexed.

"What are you trying to do at the post office today?" he asked me.

I was tempted to answer, "You mean besides posing a threat to national security?" but I refrained. I didn't think that would get me any closer to accomplishing my goal.

"I want to send out my Christmas cards, but I don't have enough stamps," I told him.

"Fine," he said. "Give me the cash and I'll go get you a book of stamps." Randall was a moron, yes, but not an asshole. This gave me some hope, and so I gave him the cash and I didn't argue and I didn't go inside. I gave Randall $21.07 and he gave me several books of stamps. I was just thinking that I should always go to the Post Office with something on me that will set off the buzzer so that I can get this special treatment. That is, until after I had stamped all my envelopes and given them back to Randall and watched him deposit them in the mailbox.

"And next time!" he yelled at me as I was walking away from him (I mean, SERIOUSLY, I was fairly far away, he had to yell), "Don't forget to take the sensor out of your pants before you try to come to the Post Office!!"

That was fucking embarrassing. Thanks a lot, Randall.

The Defender

In one of my classes, there's this little kid who is constantly asking questions that show he's really curious about what he's studying. He constantly wants to participate, he constantly has something to say, and he's constantly asking to be the facilitator (a.k.a. "boss") during group work. Of course, I think he's adorable, even though I'm usually saying things like, "Good question, buddy. Why don't you look that up for extra credit?" loosely translated to mean, "I have no fucking clue, kid." He's called my bluff a few times, but I just walk away and pretend I don't hear him or care to hear him. (This strategy, by the way, should be in teacher's books. Works like a charm.)

Anyway, it's a little unfortunate because the kid can read and understand things at about a 10th grade reading level, but he writes like a 4 year old. It's most likely a learning disability, because he spells things so completely wrong - leaving letters out, leaving entire words out, etc. - that it's often hard to understand his ideas. Still, though, you can tell he's thinking. He's pretty self-conscious about the whole thing, so I try to just tell him to slow down when he writes (he's often speeding through everything, I think because of his excitement over the information - seriously) and that his ideas are brilliant. I'm not sure whether brilliant's the right word and all, but I had a professor who often told people they were brilliant (it was like every other thing someone said, "Brilliant summary." "Brilliant question." "Just brilliant." It's amazing how many things can be brilliant), and it made everyone feel brilliant even though probably none of us were (especially this Princeton fuck who thought she was the shiiiit when she said things like, "Having kids sound out words helps them to read") and so I figure, why not tell his kid? Plus, some of his thoughts are pretty decent.

So of course, as time goes on, it becomes clear to the other kids that he writes like a maniac, but that his handwriting and spelling come out all fucked up. This really annoys him because he's constantly trying to be the boss of everyone and show everyone all the knowledge he has. He's also pre-occupied with defending himself. "I can too write," he says. "I can too sort of spell," he argues. He's like one of these little kids that just shakes his head at the comments, which are all well-meaning, because he's a friendly guy and popular with his classmates, but always feels a need to defend his honor or something. He also has these huge bug-eyes which another teacher mimicked when I asked her if she knew him. Almost knocked me over, it was so dead-on and hilarious. Anyway, he's one of my secret-favorites. (If anyone who teaches tells you they don't have favorites, they're a LIAR)

So a few days ago, the whole class was working on this project and they were talking a little loudly. One girl was on one side of the classroom, with the kid on the other side. He was working diligently on his assignment and she was, of course, being annoying and off-task. (She acts like a two year old baby when you yell at her too. "Get to work," I tell her. "Waaaah!" she says. Okay, so she doesn't cry, but it pretty much sounds like the beginning of a two-year-old's tantrum. Horrid.) I had this hand lotion with me on my desk, and the kid came up to ask if he could have some because his hands were dry.

"He always uses my lotion," the girl said.

I ignored her, because she is annoying.

"You can use some," I told him.

"Want to smell my lotion?" the girl asked. She brought it up without me answering. It was sun-ripened raspberry, the scent I used to have in all the lotions and sprays when I was in sixth grade. It's very sixth-grade-ish.

I smelled it to shut her up and told her it was nice to shut her up and told her to go back to her seat and watched as she stomped away.

The kid used my non-smelly lotion and went back to his seat. About five minutes later, the girl said, "--- smells like a girl." She said it pretty quietly, and with all the kids talking, nobody paid much attention - except the kid.

"What?" he said. It was his tone - it was this "I am going to have to go defend myself, what can they be after me about NOW?" tone that made me laugh so hard that I began crying. Of course, they saw it like I was laughing at the fact that he smells like a girl, so I had to assure him that it was more his tone that made me laugh than the comment - that was neither true nor especially funny (WAAAAAAH said the girl when I said that) - and shockingly, he seemed to understand what I was laughing at - at his little need at age 11 to defend his honor.

Maybe he is brilliant after all.

Just Some Random Holiday Cheer

- I went to this session to learn about the possibility of getting additional teaching certification. I heard about it through my school and I was told it was free and easy, so I went to this information session. After an hour of wanting to stab my eyes out, I decided not to do the program because I realized that when I had agreed to go to this session, I had forgotten the two universal truths of life: nothing's free and nothing's easy. Can't believe I forgot that.

- People out shopping for Christmas presents are twits. They're always walking in the wrong direction, always going slow, always competing with you for the last red sweater, always trying to beat you to the line. I went shopping last Saturday downtown and that was a big mistake for me and the world. As much as I like Christmas, I hate Christmas shoppers. I especially hate the old lady morons who walk around in those dopey sweaters with Santas and snowmen on them. They're all a facade, because the sweaters make you think that the person wearing the sweater will be calm and kind, but they're the most likely to stab you in the eyes just to get in front of you in line for the 15% off special.

- I ordered a bunch of art from art.com. This made me laugh. How artificial (no pun intended) can you get, ordering art from art.com? Whatever. The point is, they said they shipped it Monday and so I hope it's here tomorrow or I'm going hunting in my neighbors' apartments for cute season scenes and tree prints.

- Today I got embarrassed because I think the guy at the Gap thought I was trying to rip them off. The truth was, I might have been, but not on purpose. I got this sweater on Saturday that looks really ugly when I put it on, so I decided to return it. The Gap has a ridiculous policy that you can't exchange anything in the store without a receipt. They have to send you the store credit in the mail rather than just give it to you right there and let you use that towards items you are currently purchasing. I swear, the Gap really hates their customers. That means that they hate me, and yet I keep going back. I wish this was just something limited to the Gap with me and my life, but sadly, it's sort of part of the whole pattern.

Anyhow, the bottom line is that I was sort of trying to get the maximum store credit for the sweater, which retails at $68.00. Last Saturday, when I bought it, it was on promotion for something like $48.00. The guy ringing me up though messed up and gave me the discount for the promotion twice. When I said I was surprised that he was charging me $27, he looked at it again and shrugged and said, "Merry Christmas, I guess." I even told my roommate how amazing this was: finally, some good customer service! In fact, unbelievable customer service. Customer service I didn't deserve, really. And so, today, when I told the guy I bought the sweater on my Gap card and he asked to see that to look up the purchase, I was nervous that he'd only give me the $27 in credit back. Which, technically, is fair, but still. I was hopeful that I'd finally get an amazing deal from the Gap, who hates their customers. But the Gap guy outsmarted me and so I got $27 put back on my Gap card immediately, no mail-store credit, and I still owed $12 on my current purchases of the day. Bahumbug.

- Comcast is a motherfucking horrible company.

- There's this woman I know who constantly treats me with kiddie-gloves, like I'm some sort of developmentally stunted moron. We got this checklist sheet thing today, and she asked me if I could understand it. So I said, "Yeah... I think I can, umm, figure this out. Just go through and check the boxes that apply." The sad thing is, I was completely serious. I wasn't even trying to be sarcastic or facetious. It was just how it was. But this guy I work with was like, "I was dying! 'Check the boxes' on a checklist! How'd you keep a straight face?!" Is it a bad thing when you no longer can separate when you're being intentionally demeaning to assholes/morons and when you're just giving a straight answer? I might want to think about this.

- I went to visit my grandma on Sunday. She's sort of out of it now. My dad will freak when he reads this because he'll think I'm being insensitive, but I think I'm just being pretty honest. Anyway, that's not the point of the story at all. We saw her friend Saul, who's got the car that I love. Well, correction: had. He sold his Camry a while ago and now drives around a shitty blue Corolla. This upset me immensely about a year ago. On Sunday, my sister and I talked to him about his car. It went like this:

Two seconds after talking about my grandmother who has pneumonia right now:

Me: "So, Saul, what are you driving now anyway?"

Saul: "A corolla."

"Do you like it?"

"It's okay."

"What color?"

"Blue."

"A blue Corolla, huh?"

"Yup."

"Huh. Remember the car you used to have? A Camry?"

"Yup."

"Great car."

"I liked that car better."

"Me too, Saul. Me too."

My sister: "Maybe you should get another one." (She's in on this for some reason. I wonder if she thinks she'd get the car. She wouldn't. He likes me better. That's a fact.)

Saul: "Maybe." (Clearly not going to. Borderline-out of it.)

Me: "A nice black Camry. Wouldn't that be nice?"

My sister: "With tan leather interiors!" (Someone should tell her: she's not getting the car.)

Saul: "Yup." (Is he even hearing us?)

My sister: "We're just thinking of you."

Me: "And of me."

Saul: "What?"

It went pretty much like that. We dropped it and went onto another subject. I don't think he's going to get a Camry.

Les Enfants

I have a funny job. Today, one of my kids came up to me during class. "Miss C, I wrote you a letter at home. It's private and very important, and I'm going to give it to you at the end of class." This is a little girl who's very sweet, but also very needy. She comes in every day with a big hello but also constantly comes up to me during class to have me check over work that she knows very well is already done correctly. Sometimes, when I'm walking into work, I'll see her and she'll wait to walk in with me. She likes to talk to her teachers. When we were evacuated a few weeks ago, she spent the time talking with me and another teacher. When we let her borrow my gloves and the other teacher's scarf, she told us that she'd never felt anything so soft. It was probably true. Anyway, she told me she had this note and I said okay. I was kind of curious, but I waited until the end of class. When we were getting ready to leave, she handed me her note:

"Miss C.... I missed you alot. Do you like me as a student? I don't think you do.. just kidding! I know you like me. You better like me! One day you should keep me and (another student) after school and take us to burger king, pizza, mcdonald's, chinesse food, 4 us being good if so it should be on a Friday cuz then (the studnet) can come to my house my mom or dad will drive her home!" She then signs it.

So I laughed when I read this and thought it was sweet, but obviously, I'm not taking her to any of those places. When I saw her later, she asked me if I'd read the note. I told her I read it, but that I couldn't take her and her friend to lunch, even if they were good kids, because then I'd have to take every good kid. While in reality this would not be that many children, she didn't know that and it was easier to explain that than "legality reasons" and not as harsh as "I'd rather not spend a lot of time outside of school with my students at fast food establishments." She's sweet though.

One of my kids celebrated her birthday on Sunday. I asked her what she did for her birthday. This is a girl who lives with about ten family members in an apartment smaller than mine. She doesn't have a bed. She sleeps on a couch with her sister. She's a tiny girl, but still. Her counselor she sees says that in her file, it says that she doesn't have a personality. I don't think that's true because in her journal, she writes with a lot of emotion. She gets very nervous when she forgets her homework and she gets angry when the class gets yelled at. For her birthday, she wrote that she got a "wonderful doll." This made me very happy because I was nervous that she would receive nothing, like she said she had last year. She just wanted a cake. Apparently, she gets a special Chinese cake made with peaches. It sounded absolutely disgusting, but I told her I bet it was delicious because she was so excited. She offered to bring me a piece, but I told her I thought she should enjoy it with her family.

I have a rewarding job. Last Friday, my homeroom invited me to their music class to hear their singing. It was beautiful. I don't even use that word a lot, but it was really a nice moment: last class of the week, all these kids are around a piano singing a cheesy Disney song for their teacher. It was just so sweet, all of their little voices singing like that. About thirty seconds after the song ended, one of them yelled at the other to stop stepping her mad big foot on her sneaker or she'd beat her face in, but still.

I got tired of listening to my kids say "we was" or "you was" and have that show up in their writing. They had no idea about subject/verb agreement or what tense to use. I was really proud of them for sticking with the grammar lessons last week and all of them passed the grammar quiz I gave. Kids who could not define a verb a month ago wrote on their quizzes, "The verb 'was' is past tense and agrees with a singular subject, 'Kevin.' " Amazing. Then, last Friday, we were talking about types of sentences and amazingly, I overheard three students enthusiastically (no, really, enthusiastically) debating whether a sentence was complex or compound-complex given that they were having trouble deciding whether a clause was independent or dependent. They used all the right terms and concepts and arrived at the correct answers. It's moments like that I wish my evaluator was around, rather than when I'm having trouble getting them to understand that they need to have personality in their writing. (An all-time high: "Your writing has VOICE when it has your personality in it. Voice makes writing not boring." One of my kids raised his hand thoughtfully. "But Miss C, what if your personality is boring?")

I have a sad job. I found out, through reading one of their journals, that one of my kids wasn't in school because her mom's car was stolen. She wrote about how she loved her "candy apple red" car. She felt really nervous and sad because she had a lot of work in her backpack that she needed and she had her favorite lipglosses like bubblegum and cinnamon stix. A few days later, she wrote that they got the car back. The police told them that someone had just taken the car joy-riding, and everything was okay. "But that's not true," she wrote in her journal, "because they ripped up all my papers from my notebooks. Why'd they do that? What do they need to rip up my math homework for? Will I have to pay for the book because that's a lot of money that I don't want to pay for. The jerks also took my lipglosses." It made me sad that someone wouldn't just steal a car, wouldn't just go joy-riding in it, but would take the time to go through a pink Barbie backpack and rip up all of a kid's papers. It made her sad, too.

I notice that a lot of my kids wear the same clothes either every day or every other day. A few of them smell, well, dirty. Not like hasn't showered dirty, but just dirty-clothes dirty. This makes me sad. I also notice that a lot of their clothes are dirty. Not like stained dirty, but just tired-old dirty. The girl who wrote the note to me about Burger King has two zip-up hoodie sweatshirts: a black one and a red one.

I told a boy that I love this purple shirt he wears. It's a Ralph Lauren lavender shirt and the color looks great on him. I found out last week that his mom neglects him because she doesn't get him up for school, so she lets him just turn off the alarm and go back to sleep because he's depressed. She didn't remember his birthday either. She doesn't seem to think one has anything to do with the other.

Another one of my kids has a mother who is too depressed to take her daughter to the hospital for treatments she needs so she has her daughter check herself in and then she'll pick her up - either later that day or the next day or so. She calls to talk to her and check on her, but can't bring herself to visit her own daughter in the hospital. I told her she needed to get a binder for school because she loses everything and the kids are required to have binders. "I told my mom," she said the next day. "But my mom said it's a lot of money to get one and she needs the money to go to the store to visit her boyfriend." Well, I need money to go to the store and to go out with my boyfriend (I know, but that's not the point!) but instead I went and bought her a binder. I got her a pink one because she loves pink. She got very excited when she saw it on Monday. I told her, "Hey, kiddo, you left your binder here on Friday." I gestured towards the brand new pink binder on the table. "No, I didn't," she said. She and I went back and forth like this, with me emphasizing it more and more each time and hoping she'd pick up on the hints. Finally, she did. She's a little slow. Anyways, she got very excited and got right to work setting it up and organizing her things. It made me happy to see her so excited over her little binder. It's one of those really nice zip-up ones, like a lot of the kids have. Of course, she never really said thank you, but that's okay.

I get angry at a lot of them because they won't follow directions or shut up. I hate that I can't yell back at them when they give me an attitude in response to simple requests like, "Pick up your pencil." When a kid tells me to "Fuck off," in response to such a request, I'd rather not have to say, "Well, buddy, that wasn't a good choice. You're going to have to be written up now." Give me a fucking break.

I have a frustrating job. A few months ago, one of the boys in my homeroom started looking at this baseball pen I have on my desk. He decided he really wanted it, and so I told him he could earn it by doing his homework and classwork. Every time he did one of those things, I would put a star on a mini-chart. When he earned 20 stars, he would get the pen. This seems like something pretty simple. If he did all his homework and classwork, it would only take him ten days - two school weeks - to earn the pen. Many students could have had ten pens by now, but not him. He's repeating the grade and it seems like his old habits of last year have started again. He doesn't do any of his homework, any of his classwork. He is an expert at doing nothing. He's been through a lot as a little kid - way, way more than any person of any age should have to witness or go through - but that's not reason enough for him to stop doing work. If I allowed that to happen, I'd be a failure at my job. I'm not paid to feel bad about his life or to make him feel better about it. I'm paid to get him to learn something so he can get out of the place he's currently in. It's hard when I'm met with constant defiance on his part, so when he started to earn stars, I was psyched. He began to interact more, too. He talked with some kids. He even showed me a magic trick. That was a month and a half ago, though. He doesn't talk as much and he hasn't showed me any magic tricks. The pen's still on my desk, waiting for him.

The Christmas List

Dear Santa,

Merry Christmas. I hope you're having a nice time at the North Pole getting ready for Christmas with the reindeer and Mrs. Claus. I'm writing to you in regards to a most important matter: the naughty or nice list. I know you've probably made the list by now and may be in the middle of checking it twice, so I thought now would be a good time to make sure that Comcast was right at the top of your naughty list. If you're unfortunate enough to have to have Comcast at the North Pole, you probably know what I'm talking about.

See, Santa, Comcast deserves to be at the top of your naughty list because they are the shittiest and most dishonest company I've ever dealt with. All they do is fuck up every service they offer, fuck up every bill they send, and fuck up every customer service interaction they have. My internet is slow, my bills are always too high, and every conversation I have ends with someone promising me something that never happens. They act in bad faith, and quite frankly, have been very naughty this year.

I'm sure you're wondering why I just don't talk to Comcast directly, Santa, to get this all solved. Well, the thing is, Santa, I've tried. I've tried for the past four months to talk to someone who can actually help me, but I just keep getting told that I'm the one with the problem and that nobody can help me. Well, actually, they say that a technical supervisor can help me, but that technical supervisor has yet to call me back. Santa, if there is a technical supervisor for Comcast, that guy/woman/motherfucker belongs right at the top of the naughty list. Forever.

While you're adding that one, Santa, I'd like you to add Diane, Hector, Louise, Mary Ellen, Abe, Ivan, Paula, and Ginny to your naughty list, because every one of them told me that it was my fault that my computer crashed and that it was my fault that I had slow internet and that it was my fault that my bill was incorrect. And, of course, anything that was not my fault - like the "expert" telling me to insert an incompatible cd into my computer - wasn't anything they could help me with and, of course, wasn't their fault, either. I'd like to have all of those Comcast motherfuckers added to the naughty list, too, Santa.

I'm worried, Santa, because unless something's done to these Comcast motherfuckers, all's not right in the world. Every time I see a Comcast van, techinician, commercial, paper ad... you name it, I get angry. It's not fair that such a big company can take advantage of people and not make good on their promises to their customers. Since letters and phone calls seem to do absolutely no good, I'm hoping that a letter to Santa will. At the very least, if those Comcast motherfuckers refuse to give me the money they owe me for my ruined hard drive, and if they refuse to give me a correct bill or speedy internet, well, maybe I can take some comfort knowing that they're all receiving coal in their Christmas stockings this year. If I had anything to do with it, Santa, I'd give them coal forever. Or at least until they make good on their promises to me, which, well, may very well be the same thing.

Oh, and, if you have time Santa, if you could run your sleigh right into any Comcast motherfucking vans you see on your Christmas Eve travels, that would also make this Christmas quite merry for this little girl.

Thanks, Santa. Please send my best to Rudolph and the gang.