Oh! Mother F#####! Kill It! Kill It!

The Japanese call it the "mustache bug." If I met a man (or woman, for that matter) with a mustache that looked like this thing, I'd send them quick! to the waxer.

At this moment, I'm attempting to write about my irrational fears of the house centipede. The scutigera coleoptrata.

The problem is, in trying to download the image above, I've worked myself up into such a panic that I'm surprised my little sweaty fingers are nimble enough to strike the necessary keys.

There's no way to describe my reaction without copious use of the f-bomb, so if that word offends you, (1) I apologize whole-heartedly, (2) rest assured that I never use this word unless cornered and threatened, and (3) #2 might be a lie.

Either way, each time I look to the top right of this screen, I immediately begin laughing, though I find nothing funny at all. It's a different kind of laugh than my snort or deep baby-like giggle. This one squeezes my stomach muscles like an intense sit up, makes my eyes squint shut like I'm about to get hit, and causes me sound out a little breathy, panicky laugh, accented by "mother fucker"s. And then I cry a little. I don't know why. But  they're real tears. Fear tears. It's dumb. Ooooh, mother fucker! I just looked again! Ooooh mother fucker! Oh, my God! Oh, geeeeeeeez. That's horrible.

Nearly every time I roll out some toilet paper, I'm afraid one of these guys is just going to roll his way into view. "Haha!" It would say. "En garde!" Most people told me that this fear was irrational. Those people weren't the ones that had to make an emergency trip to 744 Syracuse Avenue (thank you, Brian Hurtt) in 1996. Brian saw it. That mother fucker was hanging on my toilet paper roll.

My dad made the 5-mile trip from his house to my apartment on Dartmouth to kill one in the kitchen. By the time he got there, I was standing on one of the chrome and red vinyl kitchen dinette chairs, tears streaming down my face, yelling, "Ooooh! Mother fucker! There it is, Dad! Mother fucker! Oooooh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus. Kill it! Kill it!" My dad, armed with an impressive arsenal of bug spray cans with various images of killer ants and bees on them, opened a can of whoop-ass ala Ghostbusters. My house smelled of toxic chemicals for days and everything I touched in the kitchen had a certain tackiness to it, but that bug was gone.

Have you encountered the house centipede? They're fast as shit. A house centipede does not mill its way across your floor. It moves all time-lapse photography style. It seriously bends time and space to get from one place to another, and it doesn't limit its terrifying fast-speed skittering to the floor. It takes its bad-ass up your wall like that boily-faced gal in the Exorcist remake. Plus, it's all "hahaha! I'm climbing up your wall, dummy!" while its doing it. I believe house centipedes mock me.

I've lived in this particular house since April, and so far, no house centipedes. It's still summer, though. When the air becomes crisp and the smell of barbecue stops infiltrating the neighborhood, these little bad asses will be looking for indoor lodging. Keep your cell phones handy. I may be giving you a call.

Wait...Wait...I Didn't Mean That!: 3 Stupid Things I've Said On The Job

#1) "I'm just a sucker for anything miniature."

I said this to an elderly customer who was eyeballing the row of neatly lined-up tiny salt and pepper shakers on the wooden shelving in our kitchen department. I even tossed my head back, held my hand up in a traffic director's "STOP!" and then flung it down at the wrist. Before the sentence escaped my lips, I knew I was talking crazy talk. What the hell does it mean? Being a "sucker for anything miniature." That I am an avid collector of miniature things? I am not.  Worse, I didn't merely suggest that I like miniature things. I'm a sucker for them. I implied that I get all goo-goo ga-ga over all things represented in tiny form.

It was like I had become momentarily possessed by a scrap booking, kitten loving, sweatshirt bedazzling, country craft-making, miniature things-collecting lady, and was so overcome with joy and love for those tiny salt and pepper shakers that I just had to tell someone. I couldn't have been any more shocked by my utterance than if I'd said, "I'm a HUGE collector or precious moments figurines!" or "Hey, try out this papasan chair. And by the way, I hate the gays!"

I'm not sure why I said it.  And as the lady smiled at me in that, "yes...yes...you and I have something in common with our love of normal things squished down into their miniature version," I felt a little guilty. When she dumped a dozen sets of the salt and pepper shakers into her shopping basket, I felt even worse.

#2) "How's it going, Sweat Pea-ness?"

  

This was, perhaps, one of the most traumatizing things I've ever said on the job. I was teaching kindergarten at the time, and had developed a habit of adding cutsie little suffixes to words that really didn't need them. (Refer to the "sie" just added to the word "cute" when "cute" would have sufficed.) "Hang your little bagsies over here on these hooksies. Good job, cuteness!" I wasn't awaresies of the change in my language, as I was surrounded by 5-year-olds and occasionally another kindergarten teacher who was on her own word kick by calling everyone "baby." I, however, randomly tossed out names like "Cutie Pie" and "Sweat Pea." The addition of a suffix to the later was just an accident waiting to happen.

No one likes to be called a "penis" by their teacher, even if I was legitimately saying "pea-ness." A "sweet penis," or "sweet pea-ness," to be fair, is even worse. Luckily, I've since abandoned both the need to suffixize everything I say and to use names for students other than what they were given at birth, a nickname derived from their original name, or occasionally "chicken" (meant in a loving way.)

Except for that one time, when I said to a group of middle schoolers,  (#3) "We'll go outside as soon as you're done with your test-ies."

It was, no doubt, a momentary lapse into an old speech pattern. The "ies" snuck their way in and attached themselvesies to the end of the word "test." I happened to be giving a short vocabulary quiz and had promised some time outside when everyone completed it. "Can we go out yet?" was met with my accidental suggestion that "testes" had anything to do with literacy class. A kindergartner might miss the mention of "sweet penis," but let me tell you, middle schoolers don't let a word like "test-ies" go by without giving you hell. I was sure that was the utterance that would land me in my principal's office, parent and scarred child sitting at the table opposite me, waiting to hear of an explanation. I made a silent promise right then and there not to cute-ify any words in the future. Ever. Except for when I water my planties or feed my dog her foodies.

Spanx for Nothin', Comments For Free

I'd like to introduce you to Spanx. They are, essentially, sausage casings for ladies, meant to extend the denial of women over 35 by making it possible for them to continue to wear the pants they wore at age 30. A good pair will keep people from wondering when you're going to announce your pregnancy, when really you just have a good post-meal bloat going on. 

(By the way, I'm a big fan of the photo above- the lady modeling the Spanx being one who is clearly in no need of Spanx. If she were, her mid-section would be trying to escape and spilling over from the elastic band at the top. Not that mine does that. I just heard about it from a friend...)

I wore a pair today. Under a dress. It was less for the slimming effect than it was for the traumatizing thought that during silent reading in my class, when kids sprawl out all over the floor and dive into books of their choosing, some kid might have an unforseen line of sight up my dress. It's a real fear. I've skirted around the perimeter of the room to avoid the accidental gaze of a floor-reader. I've also reached down and grabbed the bottom of my skirt, creating a kind of giant diaper. Both of these strategies work well. But, I've found perimeter walking + diaper fashioning + Spanx equals a security second to none.

It would be okay if I could just wear the Spanx in silence. But, I feel the need to let each passing lady know that I'm both suffering and benefiting from having my middle completely constricted. I snap the waistband in a kind of a Spanx-salute. "Got on the Spanx," I announce. "Suckin' it all in over here." My lady-conversation partner usually looks perplexed. Maybe even uncomfortable. Either way, a little more commentary escapes before I force myself to abandon the subject. "Yep. This bloat is nothin' like what it would be without these here Spanx." The words "this bloat" are sometimes accompanied by me grabbing my middle and giving it a one-two shake. I may even snap the leg part as a type of ending punctuation. An exclamation mark, if you will.

I don't even wear Spanx that often, really. We're talking maybe once every two weeks or so, when an outfit seems to really call for a slimmer and more toned me than hops out of the shower that morning. But when I do wear them, it's not uncommon for me to reference them aloud, when an unspoken thought would probably be the better choice. "Man, farting is absolutely off limits today. These Spanx will hold that odor in and 6 hours from now, when I finally change into my jammies, I'll be hit with a fart from hours-past." Or, "I'm pretty sure I could piss in my pants right now and have no idea I was doing it, no thanks to Spanx." These comments are shared only with my team members. And perhaps a co-worker or two. Family members and friends, certainly. To date, even I have had the wherewithal to keep my Spanx thoughts to myself when in the presence of students, parents of students, most authority figures and transit workers, and the majority of people in the service industry. But, it's on my mind, no doubt. 

I'll toss on a pair of Spanx if I'm hopping on the scooter in a skirt or dress. I also have a diaper-tucking system for riding my scooter in anything other than pants, but it's the accident I'm worried about. I have visions of my scooter on its side, wheels spinning like an freshly-abandoned bike, and me- several feet away, flat on my back with my skirt blown up. Can you see my undies? No, siree. I've got my Spanx on. With this freedom, I don't spend all my time on my scooter thinking of the dozens of people who will be "I see London, I see France"-in' me all up and down Delmar Blvd or Clayton Rd. I just enjoy the ride. Me and my Spanx. 

Warning to Milena: This piece uses the "p" word multiple times.

 (Note to all others: Sorry that it's not the "p" word you were probably thinking of. For that matter, I could do a whole post on the ridiculous slang for lady parts, all of which I find pretty hilarious. This post is about blemishes, though. Pimples.)

Last night, I put a blob of toothpaste on my chin, right at the spot where it appeared I had gotten a chin implant by a severely incompetent plastic surgeon. I was developing one of those "under the skin" pimples. This was not like the dozen or so smaller spots on my face which are masked by a fine tinted foundation each morning. This was a mother-of-all blemishes. It was out to disfigure and maim.

Keeping in mind my mother's "Don't touch it!-you'll just make it worse!" policy, I resisted the urge to bring myself inches away from by bathroom mirror, scrunch my mouth up and out of the way, and give this sucker a squeeze. I had a feeling that if I did, I might just piss it off and wake up to find all of its brothers and sisters had shown up roughly in the same spot to kick my ass. Or my face's ass. If that is what I have.

Of course, this was a warning I got at thirteen, when I was convinced that my teacher would be so horrified by the sight of my breakout that she wouldn't be able to teach class. My boyfriend would break up with me and my friends would scoot to another table at lunch just to get away from my hideous visage. I'd be laughed off the bus and spill the contents of my backpack as the driver opened the door and ordered me off. Bending down to pick up my belongings, I'd see my blemished reflection in a puddle and curse the day I was ever born. Hormones were prone to not only cause breakouts, but heighten my already developing sense of doom.

"You'll stop getting pimples once you graduate high school." That's another thing my mom used to tell me. Newsflash to teenagers: I'm nearly 38 with gray hair that I dye every 4-6 weeks, arm parts that become more like bread dough each time I investigate them, a face and neck that's falling at an alarming rate, and I still have pimples. Prepare yourselves. Mother nature is cruel.

I learned the toothpaste trick from my sister. "It has to be paste, not gel," she warned. Recently, she's sworn that tea tree oil works. "Your face will really stink, but that pimple will be gone like that." She snaps her fingers. I didn't have tea tree oil, but briefly considered other stinky things in the house, in case it was the stink that killed the pimple. In the end, I smeared a bit of Sensodyne on that bad boy and called it a night.

I woke to something not unlike a marble or frozen pea embedded in my chin. And it's mini-me several inches over on my jawline. Just for good measure, a little dainty one had appeared above my lip, where prettier people have beauty marks. My beauty mark was a pimple that took it upon itself to bleed the entire time I was getting ready for work. You don't see this in the commercials when a fresh-faced twenty-something gently exfoliates her skin and then splashes it clean with a shit-eating grin, like it's the most fun she's ever had in her life. I should be in those commercials. I have a thing or two to say about the demoralizing process that is face washing and inspection.

Before heading out to work, I put the finishing touches my attempt to appear like I have naturally glowing and flawless skin. I've fought the age spots, and the age spots have won, but I refuse to be overrun by pimples. I dab concealer. Brush with powder. A bit more concealer. Topped with a little more powder. By the time I'm done, I can't feel my own face. I may have strange lumps along my chin and jawline, but they're roughly the same color as the rest of my face. Success.

At lunch, I gave my chin a quick inspection. It was now bright red and calling to mind W.C. Field's famously grotesque nose. Under the harsh overhead light of the school bathroom, I had almost no choice but try to extract whatever might be disfiguring my chin so. I could tell from the get go that this one was going to put up a fight. Minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom looking as thought I picked up a small rabid animal and allowed it to frantically scratch and bite my chin area. This, I realized, was no improvement over the red bulbous thing I had going on moments before.

I popped (no pun intended) into the nurse's office and got a bit of ice to put on it. "What happened to you?" asked a kid who was there for legitimate medical attention.

"Oh this?" I replied. "I got punched in the jaw by Mr. B." (the take-no-crap math teacher on our team).

"Really?" She gulped.

Great. I'm such an ass. Why do I say things like that? "No, honey. I have a big ol' pimple on my face and I tried to pop it but just the juice came out well some other stuff came out but not the real part you know the part that's making it all puffy and all and now it's throbbing and all red and it's all 'dang! that hurts!' so I'm all like 'I'm puttin' some ice on this sucka' so I came in here to get some-" Sometimes I don't know when to stop.

Walking back into the cafeteria, holding a little baggy of ice on my now throbbing chin, I run into our new assistant principal (special shout-out to Mr. Balossi!) and I'm now deep into that zone of I know I should keep certain things to myself but they just keep spilling out of my mouth anyway. "Hey, you got any concealor? For my big old chin pimple?" This is what I say to him.

Now, keep in mind I've met this man only a handful of times. And he is my boss. The first time I spoke to him was at a back to school breakfast, and against my better judgment, I greeted him with a knock-knock joke about poop. It was received about like you think it would be. I've tried to put myself on a "hello," "how are you?" "good morning" and "have a nice day!" probation with him since then, and let me tell you, it takes great restraint. But, I love my job. And I want to keep it.

Here I was, though, not only calling attention to my hideous chin, but asking Mr. Balossi to see if he could round up some makeup for me. "You can't even see it," he assured me. This is how nice he is. "It's always worse for the person who has the pimple." I want to believe him. He seems so believable. I couldn't help but thinking he was eyeballing my chin in that "I can't help but let my eyes wander there" way that one has when talking to someone with giant boobs. You know. You're not trying to be creepy or anything. They're just...there. Although I guess having just typed the word "boobs" in a paragraph about my new assistant principal and chin pimples does, in fact, put me in some kind of creepy category that I'd so not like to be in. Onward...

7th graders started streaming in, and while I first had the idea to conceal the pimple by trying to appear to be in a constant state of pensive reflection, thumb under the chin and pointer finger gently wrapped across it- I decided against it. The greatest gift I can give a cafeteria full of twelve and thirteen-year-olds is to see me standing tall, chin a-glow with a now oozing post-attack pimple, and smiling like I'm so confident that a little old pimple isn't going to throw me off. "Huh. If Mrs. Maret can have a giant pimple right there on her face and not seem to mind, I guess I can sit right down with my pimply self and proceed to eat this bologna sandwich." That's what I like to think I'm doing.

Then again, perhaps no one notices.

Take My Cheeks, Please!

I guess I could eat a person if I absolutely had to.  I don't mean if someone had a gun to my head and said, "Chew this guy's arm fat or I will shoot you." Then, I'd take the bullet. I really would. But, let's say I was on a plane that went nose-first into the side of some icy mountain top, and me and the other half dozen or so survivors had already eaten everything we could to survive: complimentary peanut bags flung from the aircraft and lodged in treetops, unnaturally round patties of chicken with faux grill marks, mayonnaise packets adorned with the airline's logo, frozen gum sticks pulled out of the back pockets of bodies here and there, coffee goo licked from the insides of previously-considered-empty Starbucks to-go cups. When all that was gone, we'd chomp on snow for awhile. That's all there is. Snow. And a few trees. That and a massive mound of twisted metal and wiry guts that once was our plane.

But I'm telling you, there are no animals around. If there were, we'd eat them. Oh, maybe we'd get lucky and find the one high-altitude mammal that got left behind. I picture a marmoset. (Upon googling "marmoset" to make sure I had the right animal name, I realize I made a dreadful mistake. I'd eat a person before I'd eat one of these cute little creatures, for sure. See photo.)

 

What I meant to say is that I picture a capybara. That's just the squirrel/rabbit/dog combo that I could imagine a few survivors running around and wrestling to the ground. I couldn't kill it, personally. I'd bawl like a baby. I'd bawl all the way through chewing its grizzly little flesh, too. But I'd be hungry and my aching belly would be calling the shots from here on out.

People-eating would only be brought up when everything, I mean everything else had been eaten. Trees would be stripped of their bark by this time. Woozy survivors would be found gnawing on the plane's blown-out tires to no avail. It would have to get to the point where there was really no other choice but to lay down and die.

I've seen cartoons where one guy is super-duper hungry. Say he's trapped in some small shipping container with another guy. The hungry guy looks over at the other and suddenly imagines the guy's head to be a nice, juicy steak. He's just a big old steak with a person's body, standing there in that confined space. The hungry guy starts salivating and that steak-head just keeps looking better and better. 

I imagine that after days and days, weeks, maybe- of being hungry up there in the snow-prison, somebody's head might start looking like a steak. If I really had to, I mean really had to, I think I could do it.

I've pointed out to more than one person which parts of myself I thought would make for decent snacking if someone near me got desperate enough. My cheeks have always been plump and a bit squishy, and I'm guessing they'd be sought after like the drumsticks on a chicken. If we're ever stuck on a mountain like that, after a crash, and you've eaten everything there is but the passengers packed in ice around you, I give you permission to eat my cheeks. Not my butt cheeks, of course. Because that is just wrong, and a little gross, if you ask me. But you can have at my face. 

 

(*DISCLAIMER FOR MY MOTHER: I am not planning on crashing a plane. I do not crave human flesh. I have never eaten human flesh. But I have eaten chicken, which sometimes seems just as crazy of an idea if I give it some thought. I am not issuing an invitation for some stranger or crazy ex-boyfriend from the 1980s to come find me and slice off my cheeks and eat them. I do not sit around and think about what it would be like if I had to eat people after a plane crash. Only sometimes. And that's only after I read the book "Alive," where people did eat people. I would not eat you, or dad, or Amy, or Leif, or Rose. Even if I would, I'd lie about it right now to make you feel better. Two sentences ago was the truth.)

Sneakin' Into The Park After Dark

I live two houses from a park.  It's nothing big- a large rectangle of grass spotted with thick plastic playground equipment, one splintering pavilion with a dozen or so picnic tables, a mound of sand that made for a volleyball court at one time, an antiquated swing set with peeling paint and swings that are too high off the ground to ever really get airborne, and a squat brick building housing toilets that you'd have to be really desperate to use.

This is the park I used to sneak into after dark.

Too old to remain home on a summer night and too young to really have a place of my own to go to, I'd hop the wooden railings that border the park and make my way inside. My first stop was usually the slide, which any teenager knows is meant to be conquered in running steps, avoiding the actual stairs completely.  CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG and I was at the top, perched in my own personal watchtower, from which I had a good view of my parents returning to our house next door.

If I timed it right, I could extinguish my cigarette, pull the travel-sized mint toothpaste from my pocket, liberally apply the paste to both my tongue and the two fingers that act as my cigarette chopsticks, wipe it all off on the inside of my shirt, jump off the slide, sprint across the street, blast through the front door of our house, and be upstairs in my room studying the back of Prince's Purple Rain album before mom and dad even put their key in the lock.

My park didn't tell me I was too young to smoke Marlboro Lights, one after another, while rolling my thumb over the grooved thumbwheel of my zippo, crunching the flint below. I took comfort in the fact that enveloped in the dark, I appeared to be nothing but a faint pulsating orange glow. I could disappear into myself.

On certain occasions I'd have company.  People who spoke the same language of contempt for anyone over 18 and anyone under 15. Pat, Blake, Natasha...they were allowed in. Anyone else was nothing short of an intruder. The park was my outdoor basement with much higher ceilings and no parents clunking around one floor above.

A time or two I led a boy there. Besides smoking, my park also encouraged the kind of making out that left one's face raw, as if rubbed vigorously with a loofah.  Large pieces of concrete tunnels were meant for making out, however cumbersome they were to climb in and out of. Scraped knuckles and knots on the head were all part of the experience. War wounds of teenage love.

Scattered across the park several inches below the ground's surface are a dozen or so hermetically sealed tiny glass jars; remains of a self-absorbed piece of performance art from my 20s. Inside each jar is a relic from my childhood- a bit of fabric from a curtain that hung in the house I lived in when I was a kid, a photograph of my dad holding the plump, toddler version of myself, scraps of paper with various scribblings. This sort of thing. At one point in time, I knew the location of each jar. Under what was home plate. Near the base of the big oak tree. Twenty paces from the drinking fountain. These are things I knew a long time ago.

Tonight I walked past the park with my dog. The sky looked like someone brushed india ink across it, and I could scarcely make out the swings or the slide set way back from view. The park was empty, as far as I could tell. No one is claiming the space tonight.

From time to time, while walking my dog late at night, I catch a faint whiff of cigarette smoke coming from deep within the park. Sometimes I can see an orange dot glowing. Pulsating. A teenage beacon. I walk parallel to the wooden railings over which I feel too old to cross after the sun goes down. (There is a "park closes after sunset" sign, don't you know. When did I become old enough to obey signs? The thought makes me smile.) I stay on the sidewalk. Walking. Walking my dog at night on the sidewalk.  I will pick up my dog's poop, place it in the proper receptacle, walk home, wash my hands, and be in bed before 10:00. I am the adult for whom I had so much contempt. This also makes me smile.

What The Cameras See

We have security cameras in our school.

They're cleverly hidden behind smoky black domes mounted to the ceiling in various corners of the building.  There are no red blinking lights. They do not turn and follow our every move, focusing in on a suspected bathroom vandal or a pretty intern.

They simply record the seemingly mundane events of the school day. A replay at fast speed would show the same thing every twenty-four hours: Custodians arrive. Lights flick on. Empty halls remain undisturbed except for the early arrival of the work-aholic teachers and the childless ones. Early student drop-offs trickle in. Then more. And more. Finally the lobby is packed- a jar full of collected bugs, squirming and bouncing into the glass. Some resigned to their captivity and some looking longingly outside, thinking of a way home.

The bell rings and students run through the halls. Lockers are opening and shutting at an alarming speed. The camera keeps recording.. There are super-speed high fives and hugs, shoulder pushes and hip bumps. Heads are bobbing up and down, thrown back in laughter or tucked chin-to-chest in hopes of not being seen. The hallways clog up like the interstate at rush-hour, then the crowd dissipates as quickly as it appeared. Left are the two or three students struggling with their combination locks. One has given up and taps his head over and over on the blue metal door of his locker, trying to remember that boys don't cry. And the camera keep recording.

Every ninety minutes, the same hallway scene is repeated. And at 3:12 the whole thing happens in reverse.

On the rarest of occasions, the cameras record something other than this.  A young man broke into the school and vandalized a classroom. The cameras calmly watched it happen, and gave a play-by-play hours later when the first custodian arrived. It's no surprise that the vandal was apprehended shortly thereafter.  This is why we have security cameras.

A teacher made his way in the building one morning, and took an impressive spill. Played over and over on a loop, both forwards and backwards, this made for a very entertaining piece of video to view. Which we all did. Multiple times. This is also why we have security cameras.

I must say, this type of mass-humiliation has only happened once, and it was with the consent of the video's subject. This was a man with a strong sense of self-esteem.

Yesterday, as I was in the otherwise empty hallway with a co-worker, demonstrating how my dog does what I call the "boot scoot" across the floor, I was suddenly and painfully aware of the little black dome above and slightly behind me. While I was not personally boot-scooting across the hallway's blue carpet, I did contort myself in such a way (back hunched over, butt tucked in) before what would amount to be a series of grotesque pelvic thrusts meant to mimic that of a dog dragging its exposed rump across a scratchy surface.

I froze, mid-scoot, and imagined my own personal video loop spreading across the internet like wild-fire. I had the sudden urge to drop to the ground and army-crawl my way into my classroom undetected.

This is not the first time I've felt this way.

I surely can't be the only teacher in the building who, upon thinking she's finally found some privacy away from a classroom of students, reaches back to adjust her bunched-up underwear with an elastic SNAP! only to remember the cameras mounted above.

Or absent-mindedly reaches up to dislodge that flaky booger that had been bothering her all morning, when, Why, hello there, camera....while the finger is one-knuckle deep in the right nostril.

My sudden awareness of the camera in our team area has cut the following actions short, but not stopped them from occurring altogether: folding my arms under my armpits and dancing around the table like a chicken, checking my armpits in general, verifying that I'm too big to fit into a locker, working my way through decades of dancing styles (charleston, waltz, stroll, mash-potato, disco steps, the running man, the jerk), flicking a teammate off to his/her face, flicking a teammate off behind his/her back, demonstrating how to make a snow angel, flicking hamster poop onto the carpet, showing a co-worker a mouth full of my chewed food, and popping an arm zit.

I imagine if someone were so inclined, a madcap and zany Benny Hill-like production of antics could be assembled from the hours and hours of teacher footage alone. (Minus the scantily-clad ladies being chased by creepy, pasty old men. At least I hope that's nowhere to be found in our archives.) It must be out of the sheer lack of time or sheer respect for each other that no such clips exist.

Next time I freeze mid undie-pull, look up with a stunned and slightly embarrassed expression at the smoky dome, I'll remember the hours and hours of footage of me working one-on-one with kids in that same hallway, not giving up. I'll remember that the same camera which sees me boot-scoot also captures the way I greet every single kid in the morning with genuine excitement and care. It sees me bend down next to that lone kid in the hallway trying to figure out his locker combination or eating lunch with the kids who's having a hard day. The camera watches as an old student comes back to visit and this time my embarrassment is due to my tears, which surprise even me.