DoNot Holiday

Well now. My DoNots have been pulling through for me.
I arrived at school this morning with the beginnings of a
headache, made the grand tour of my classroom, stowed
my sandwich in the mini-fridge, taunted the map of the
U.S. which did NOT fall off the wall overnight, logged
on to both computers, wrote the date on the board, laid
out the materials for the day, and proceeded to the
teachers' workroom to check the mail.

And there they were, like Christmas in March, stashed
in my mailbox. Four notices for ISS. And not just any
students, mind you. The livest wires I've got, if you don't
count the one that was sent there last week, and had all
of this week added to his sentence. WooHoo! Peace at
last. A staff member said, "You really have a crew this
year! I couldn't believe it when I saw those papers."
I told her this was nothing compared to 5 years ago. I
had some hard-core looking-for-trouble kids back then.
This year, they are just annoying. Like no-see-ums, only
I can see 'um. And HEAR 'um. They rattle on day after
day. The other kids, who spend all day with them, are
also fed up. The ISSers don't do anything bad enough
in my class to be sent to the office. Thank the Gummi
Mary, they overstepped their boundaries in the lunch
room, with a sub, violated attendance, and slacked a
bit too much. That's what caused each to be sent there.
Bon voyage, my little NotHeads. We'll see you when
you get back.

As an added bonus, a Basementia resident told me a
little story. I will call it fiction, as he is not the most
reliable of sources.

"In elementary, my teacher didn't like me. She was all
the time staring at me, giving me the evil eye. Finally,
one day I said, 'Hey, you got a freakin' problem with
me?' And she sent me to the office! I told the principal
she hated me. He told me I needed to watch my mouth.
Can you believe that?

One day, Mrs. Teacher was at the closet in the back of
the room with Mrs. Next Door Teacher. They were
standing right in the doorway, and Mrs. Teacher took
a drink of beer out of a paper bag. The she handed it
to Mrs. Next Door Teacher, and she took a drink!"

"That's hard to believe, that a teacher would risk her
job just to drink beer where the whole class could see.
How do you know it wasn't root beer? Or water? Or
Gatorade, or juice?"

"It didn't look like root beer to me."

"How could you tell? It was in a paper sack."

"The bottle was glass."

"How do you know, if it was in a paper sack?"

"Because she held it really tight at the top, like it was
glass. And then, one day we were down at the gas
station, and we saw her buy a bottle of beer! She
was telling the clerk, 'I'm going to take this home
drink it.' Then she turned and saw us, and went,
'Oh!' like she was surprised that we caught her."

"How do you know it wasn't for her husband? Maybe
she knew you were there all the time, and knew you
were spreading rumors about her drinking beer in the
closet at the back of the room, so she was pranking
you by saying that to the clerk where you could hear."

"No. She meant it. Teachers aren't supposed to drink
beer!"

"She's over 21, isn't she? And it was after school, so
she wasn't at work. I don't think she broke the law."

"Well, she's not supposed to drink."

Ahh...don't hate me because I lead such a charmed life.
Hate me because I flaunt it.