LIBERATING THE PAPERS

Friday when I leave school, it is later than I'd like and on the heels of a crappy, crap-filled meeting.  I pack everything up, making sure papers are clipped and fastened, add my planning, and bring home my grade book because grades are due by 8:00 a.m. Monday morning. At home and after dinner has been cooked, served, and cleaned up, I get everything spread out and alphabetized, all ready to go and ...

Bullfuckingshit.  I have left a key stack of papers on my desk (under a text book).  Damnation.

I get as much other work done as I can Friday night, anyway.  When I finally drag my sorry ass to bed around midnight, I need to actively practice relaxing because I am still so pissed off about forgetting the papers. This, though, is when I am beyond glad that my school is connected to the high school.  I know the high school is open for sports and for play practice on Saturday.  Maybe, just maybe, I might be able to get to my classroom and retrieve the papers.

I arrive at school around 10:00 a.m. and park out in the lot but near to to the high school gym entrance.  Girls' basketball games are going on, so I am able to access the main hallway.  My wing is not locked by doors, however, which is one of the things that terrifies us if an active shooter ever gets onto campus; we are ALL, quite literally, sitting ducks from grades six to twelve.  There are, however, some fire doors that I've seen swing shut.  If they are secured with a chain lock, I am shit outta luck.

I pass the gym and notice that the wing to my school is blocked ... with a table.  A folding, plastic table.  I don't bother moving it; instead, I sit on it, twirl myself around, and flip over it.   As I do this, the theme song from Mission Impossible is playing in my head.  A parent watching the game is pacing the hallway and stares at me.  "Forgot something important," is all I say.

Once past the table sentry, I peer down the darkened hallway.  Down. All the way down. The doors ... are ... open.  This is when the music in my head changes to the theme song from Get Smart.  I hustle down the hallway, half-expecting the fire doors to close as soon as I get to them. They don't, and I am finally about one hundred yards from my room.

When I get to the end of the long, LONG hallway where my door is, it is pitch black.  I have the key to my room in one hand, and I feel the key to make sure I have the flat edge to the top.  I feel around with my left hand until I've located the locking mechanism on my door.  It takes me about twenty seconds to get the key into the lock while completely blind, but suddenly the key and lock turn, and my door swings open.

THANK GOODNESS.

I move a few things around on my desk, grab the stack of papers, grab a second stack just because (these are for the next term, but whatever), lock the door again, and make my way back to the high school gym door.  Once more I flip over the table rather than move it.  Once outside, I weave through the cars in the lot to my own, parked in the back and facing out for a quick getaway.

As I'm trying to leave, some idiot is determined to fit his SUV into a space across from me, even though he clearly doesn't fit.  Forward, back, forward, back .... he's not going to make it.  Finally, he tries backing in near me.  I lose my patience and move forward, driving around him and causing him to most probably shit his pants.

I don't care.  I'm free!!!!  I have what I need!  It's like the Brinks Robbery only better.  I don't have any songs running through my head at the moment, so I turn on Sirius radio and find some soothing spa music.  What I need now is some relaxation music for what comes next in this misadventure: Liberating the missing papers isn't the worst of it -- now I have to grade them.