2006-10-06

R-O-W-D-I-before-E-except-after-C

Today was our pep rally. I'm not really into pep; in fact, peppy people are the individuals I want to slap the most. What are you so happy about? The world sucks: Stop cheering for the JV water polo team and go fight against some injustices.

My students tried to trick me into participating in the pep rally by saying that all of the Language Arts teachers were going to be assisting the cheerleaders. I didn't buy it. "Do you know how ungrammatical cheerleaders are?" I asked them. I cited some examples, like to "be, be aggressive." Finally, I conceded that cheerleaders sure do love to spell. "Give me an A!" I mock cheered, about to spell an entire word, before interjecting on my own joke. "In all seriousness, most of you are getting B's." Only a couple of the students were able to follow my progression of jokes, the rest must be on the football team or something. "I bet you know how to spell rowdy," I said to a cheerleader (pictured at right) in the class. After I received a blank stare, I chanted, "R-O-W-D-I-E, that's the way we spell rowdy." It didn't occur to me until that point that that's not how rowdy is spelled. I pondered it aloud for a while and then concluded, "And that is why I will not be participating in the pep rally." Again, the class was completely confused, except for two students who found me hysterical. I swear, I'm the most bizarrely irritating teacher to most students, but to the few who get my dry sense of humor and everything's a big joke approach to teaching, I'm pretty sure I'll be their favorite teacher ever.

It's one of these in-the-know students that asked why I was wearing bowling shoes. That's right, I wore bowling shoes to school today. Bowling shoes were the extent of my pep, I decided. "Did you steal them?" someone asked. I got into this whole long story that once when I was bowling, I gave them my shoes, but when I went back for them, they were missing, and so I asked if I could just keep the bowling shoes instead.

That, by the way, was a lie: the truth is that I stole them.

My shoes weren't the only things the kids took notice of today. For kicks, I also chose to wear the tightest pair of pants I own, where snugness begins to border on obscene. As I teach, I sit on a high table in front of the desks, putting my crotch on display. Generally, that's not really an issue, but in these pants, it's significantly more noticeable. As I read, I caught a student staring at my crotch intently. I take a quick peek, and indeed I'm probably a bit more penis-y than kids are used to seeing in their teachers. It wasn't as though as I was, uh, happy at the moment, but these pants are pretty generous. A couple of minutes later, I noticed another student staring, as well. At that point, I realized that part of the problem was that these pants were so tight, I apparently ripped them and a hole at the underside of the crotch had emerged to display my boxers. Talk about pep!

When the pep rally actually occurred, I stayed indoors, occasionally watching from my classroom window. Rather than looking at the main event, however, I choose to watch the emo kids on the outskirts, doing their best to ignore the festivities. They'd rather cut themselves than have school spirit and, you know what?, I respect that. Because I'm a good teacher -- with stolen bowling shoes and a hole in my pants displaying my underwear.

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