Fiasco #1
The sun was making a rare springtime appearance so my fellow counselor "A" and I brought out the chalk and took the kids outside to the playground for afternoon activity. Everything was going fine until a group of girls ran up and alerted us to the fact that a little boy who was not part of our group was using our chalk. "That's fine," I told them, after looking over and noting that the boy was sitting on the concrete harmlessly drawing a flower. (It should be mentioned that parents often bring their children to the playground after school, so seeing a little boy running around was not surprising. What was surprising, though, was that this particular child's parent was nowhere to be found.)
I hadn't turned my back on him for two minutes when the same group of girls marched over once again, this time with noticeably heightened purpose, and announced, "That boy is eating our chalk!" I spun around and sure enough, the boy was gripping the stick of pink chalk in his little fist, gnawing away furtively. "Um," I said to the girls, "just...um...keep drawing." It may surprise you to learn that while we counselors receive multiple certifications and go through monthly trainings on topics like How to Recognize and Report Child Abuse and How to Prevent the Spread of Infectious Diseases, we are not exactly schooled in How to Approach a Strange Child Who is Ingesting Your Chalk. As more and more of our kids kept approaching us and informing us of the boy's chalk-eating progress--"He put it in his pants!" "He's spitting it out and rubbing his hand in it and putting it back in his mouth!"--I became more and more concerned about the absence of his guardian.
After he had devoured the entire stick and scampered off toward the slide, I took a girl, R, to the bathroom to wash the chalk dust off her hands. "I can't believe that boy ate our chalk!" R said. "How much did he eat, exactly?" I asked her. "The whole stick!" she replied. "And he said he was four! My two-year-old sister knows not to eat chalk!"
When R and I returned to the playground, I was approached by a woman with a little girl. "Excuse me," the woman said, "is that little boy in the turquoise shirt with you?" "No," I answered, "and actually, we're looking for his parent, too. He just ate our chalk." The woman's eyes grew wide and she laughed. "He ate it?" I nodded. "Well, Honey," she said, turning to her daughter, "it turns out that this boy might be a little special." I realized that the little girl must have had some complaint about Chalk Eater and the mother had set out to investigate. Several minutes later the boy's father appeared, and several minutes after that the boy had disappeared from the playground. Shortly thereafter we ran out of chalk.
Fiasco #2
When I returned to the playground with R, I saw A practically sprinting toward me. (I should tell you here that this was only A's sixth day on the job.) "Quick question," she said, alarm strangling her voice. "Do you know that guy?" She pointed to a man who had his arms around K and N, twin girls in our program. He kissed one of them on the cheek and A became visibly distressed. "It's okay," I told her, "he's their dad." A sighed and her shoulders relaxed. "Thank God," she said. "I was about to call CPS!" We detailed the story to our supervisor later that evening and she smiled. "It doesn't help that whenever he picks them up they both say, 'We don't know him!' I should get them to stop."
Fiasco #3
After the woman and her daughter marched off to find Chalk Eater's parent and before said parent was located, A informed me of an incident that had taken place while R and I were in the bathroom. "So," A started, "E tried to sit on some guy's dog." (You may remember E from the conversation she and I had several weeks ago about the purpose of scarves and how I do not play for the Sounders.) "She what?" I asked. "Well, first she asked to pet it and proceeded to stab it in the eyes with her fingers." A paused to judge my expression. "Then she tried to sit on it." It had been a small dog, A explained, with tiny legs unequipped to handle the weight of a kindergartner. "I told her to stop," A said, "but she didn't listen." (Typical E.) "What did the guy do?" I asked. "He kind of stared at her and said, 'Please don't ride my dog.' I had to yank her away." Later that evening, during the ice breaker portion of our monthly staff meeting, A and I recounted the story of E trying to ride a strange man's dog and were met with a roomful of "Oh, E." Oh, E, indeed.
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