Work Chronicles

I have come up with a new segment on this here blog, all about work - just in time for me to be done in two weeks. (My timing is simply impeccable.) Here's the latest:

The other day a kid named S found a packet of sweet relish on the ground. He has been carrying it around with him for days in a paper cup filled with water.

Ever since the Day of the Blue Button Incident, Alyx and I have been approached by at least five children every day who are all eager to inform us that the water is still freezing and that someone has once again pushed the blue button. No amount of sarcasm on our part is comprehensible to them. God bless the age difference: it keeps them from hating us.

This afternoon at snack time I was sitting at a table eating my orange and I felt a tap on my shoulder. J, a second-grader, was beaming as he held up Tin Tin: The Black Island which he'd just checked out from the school library that day. "Check this out!" he said, and set it on the table between me and Alyx. "Hey J," I said, "we've got our food here and the tables are a little sticky. Why don't you take your book somewhere else and I'll come look at it as soon as I finish?" "Okay," J answered. He picked up the book, took two steps from my left side to my right side, and set the book back on the table in front of me.

A couple months ago Alyx was drinking a juice box when it was time to clean up for recess. "Okay, guys!" she said, "The markers need to get put away, the paper goes in the recycling, everything needs to be up off the floor!" Several moments passed and no one made any move to do anything. "I've realized," Alyx said to me quietly, "that I have absolutely zero authority when I'm holding a juice box."

L: Knock knock. No, wait. You start.
Me: Knock knock.
L: Wait. I start. Knock knock.
Me: Who's there?
L: Joey.
Me: Joey who?
L: Joey thinks I'm really funny for telling this Knock Knock joke.
Me: Who's Joey?
L: I don't know.
Me: Good joke.

AR: I get a lot of owwies.
AC: I have two bandaids on my hip right now.
AR: One time I got hurt and had to put a bandaid on my peanuts.