the Noble Enterprise of Educating the Young and Destitute
TAKI OPEN BAG HOSTILITY
I had the “ex-girlfriend”-theme dream again, with both ka and tal
In my dream I thought that we could even have a 3 some. I reasoned dreamily,
tal likes soft butches, I know they do.
In the dream, I watched ka walk in front of me, so fit and stylish. We were all out. I was dressed up. They liked me. It was like a dream of how you feel on cocaine.
The house-theme dream was also decidedly happy. People were showing me this college living space, or apartment, and indeed the rooms were huge. Everyone was happy, and I couldn’t wait to hang up all my jackets in my walk-in closets.
In real life, in real time, I made it through another day of teaching in late April, crawling on hands and knees toward spring break, with tons of reports due, meetings to plan, and feeling sick and also in despair for the Earth. I didn’t crash out till the very end of the day.
I'd been bribing our 7 students all week to be good and quiet (so that I could work on reports) with movies (the boy being the most quiet, calm, and engaged gets to pick), freetime with crafting, only 2 lil worksheets to complete.
At 1:30 PM on Friday afternoon, it’s also “Fun Friday” on my dime.
I bring (Aldi) soda pop, candy, hot fries, Takis. I’d even brought in a couple old devices, a kindle and my old iphone) like Tom asked me to, all week long, to try hooking them up to the classroom TV to play some Amazon Prime games (I keep it for them), or like, download Minecraft.
Martinez had been eating both healthy and unhealthy snacks ALL DAY, as per usual. He’s a food addict, aggressive about it, and our inconsistency makes it worse. He’s the same way at home, that’s why mom can’t deal with it.
He ate a full lunch, then takis, candy, and hot fries for fun Friday, but at 2:15pm, almost time to leave, time to call this week a wrap, he started demanding MORE TAKIS.
Ms. Mary said afterward that it’s because I left the bags out rather than hide them, (like leaving cocaine around an addict, she said, knowing I’d get that, fuck her, lol jk), and I should’ve listened to her and hid the snacks. In the moment, I thought X might wake up from a nap on the bean bag (probably has RSV) and want some, and I didn’t wanna have to unlock anything to retrieve the stupid fucking takis.
I would do the entire scene over, if I could.
I said to Martinez, FINE, ONE MORE (just don’t crash out), and it almost worked, Everybody was watching. I got him one, and he smiled, but then he said, Please let me get it out. I nodded and prayed for him to only take one, like we agreed, showing the proper respect, but OF COURSE he took a full handful instead! And so I impulsively grabbed his fist of Takis, and he let go, but started yelling, and pounding tables and walls, and cussing at me. He yelled, I’M HUNGRY! (with a gutteral sound) But I yelled back, No you're NOT! You’re something else!
Then I turned into Evil Mom/Scary Teacher. Thinking like, after all I did for you today, you ungrateful wretches! How dare you not respect me when I gave you everything you asked for! I let you play! You owe me love, little orphans! I didn’t say any of that, but I probably emanated it (perhaps, worse).
Oh well, nobody’s perfect. I don’t hold up as Perfect Teacher when my immune system is suffering.
Everyone who’s generous (almost all women toward men and children) can turn into evil mom or scary teacher.
So, I showed them that. At least my teammate Mary knows me well enough to not really mind and not be triggered by me yelling and showing anger/frustration. I’ve had teammates react badly to it. But every parent yells sometimes, and teachers, too. Whoops. But guess what the kids do every day? Yell, and a lot more. I think they’ll survive.
I should’ve known they would be extra shitty about it. When you give extra things to needy kids, they don’t act grateful, they just try to get more and if they can’t, they attack you or cry. It’s not fun afterall. The last time I got this mad at a couple kids it was Martinez and Earl at the earn-it-Halloween-pizza-party. Those two didn’t earn it. But they sure got the pizza, and Mary and I were pissed. We should get to say, no pizza, to a kid that’s being disrespectful. But not if your supervisor is fake and soft. Mine isn’t completely, but she was that day. The kids who ruined the day for everyone else got to have the pizza, happy Halloween.
As I should’ve expected but didn’t (disabled with fatigue), Tom wasn’t grateful for the Kindle game access via using my old device. He just wanted more time than 12 minutes (which was generous) and then he said, I want to print a picture, too.
Ms. Mary said no, and I said, I don’t know, getting confused because he WAS student of the day. Then he started yelling at me, demanding the picture, and so I said no, too. Then Martinez got in my face, pointed his finger at me (covered in hot fries red spice) and yelled, You’re a fucking nigger! That’s when I crashed out and yelled back, YOU’RE a nigger! And the boys in special education/residential use the n word so much, so badly, No matter what they look like, that we all hear it 100 times per day, and I was so out of control, that I just yelled it back at him. Neither of us are black. Martiniez looks latino but claims he’s white. I bet his mom is racist, or dad, one of them.
Then I started yelling at Tom how I’m never bringing in a device, ever again, because he was “acting so bratty about it.” Ms. Mary added, Yeah, and you had the whole day off.
Tom yelled at me, YOU DON’T CALL ME A BRAT! I’M TELLING MY PARENTS! I yelled back, TELL THEM, TELL THEM EVERYTHING!
I probably yelled more stuff that I already blocked from my conscience because it was like another me, Scary Teacher. Then Tom ran and grabbed my old iphone with the shattered screen, the soft-chartreuse-yellow-case, iphone6 that I’d brought in for him to try as a console, like he asked me all fucking week, and he held it “hostage,” (which I didn’t actually gaf about because it’s just my spare), and he refused to leave the classroom until a whole gang of staff showed up up and made them leave with their physical presence and saying, Go Go.
Earl didn’t say a peep all day. He just sat there in his dirty Nirvana t-shirt and khaki shorts, incessantly rubbing and scratching his crotch to itch it because he hasn’t showered in a month, because he refuses to, and he scribbled nonsense on his worksheets, which I didn’t see till later, so I’m glad he didn’t get his daily reward, amidst the yelling parties, he was silent and indifferent. They said not to worry about him acting like a zombie. New to antipsychotic drugs. Will take a minute to speed back up to real time. I’m so curious about how it feels. Also still think he’s being oddly theatrical about it. Not sure, but will never trust that Jack Nicholson face. “Redrum Redrum.”
X slept all day. I think he’s sick. Being sick and breaking computers overlap on the timeline of data that only exists in my head. The last things I yelled at my students was just, GET OUT GET UP OUT OF MY CLASSROOM! Tom said, OH YOU’RE ACTING LIKE YOU’RE THE BOSS OR SOMETHING!
I yelled BACK, I AM THE BOSS! Get out of here! My teammate Mary started tugging on my sleeve, trying to help me stop, but sometimes a crashout just has to burn til the match is out.
So, the kids were shepharded away from their insane teacher, back to their units FOR MORE BULLSHIT.
Me and Ms. Mary left immediately. I didn’t even sweep. I couldn’t stay a second longer. I even forgot my charger in the rush to flee the scene of discontent. And I didn’t tell my boss that I was leaving. I don’t think I should have to considering that they always, definitively get the better end of the labor per hour deal.
I’m so glad X was asleep when I crashed out because it would have seriously set him off. He starts believing he’s staff, and trying to discipline us, including real staff, and he won’t stop, and makes everything horrible.