I am walking around the classroom, handing back papers to
the kids while they are working in groups.
I wait until they have finished reading the play, a shortened version of
A Christmas Carol, so I won't
interrupt their momentum and also because it's fun to listen to them spout
their lines.
One group finishes first, so I hand back their work, some
papers I had collected and graded from earlier in the week, then allow them
start the homework. The second group
wraps up the drama, so I give them their completed work plus the homework so
they, too, can get a jump start.
When I hear the last, "Yes, God bless us every
one," I make my way over to the final group. I stand at the edge of their combined desks,
passing papers to one student, instructing him to pass the papers around to
their rightful owners. He looks around,
sits perfectly still, and exclaims, "Whooooooooooa! You have looooooong eyelashes!"
I continue passing papers out because I sure as heck don't
want to get into the middle of any weird boy-girl conversations unless I
absolutely have to. Two more voices from
the group chime in, "Wow, she really does have long lashes," and
"I never noticed that before."
More papers are handed to the students in the group until I hear a
rustling noise. I look up and realize
every single student has turned in his or her desk and is staring at me. And they're all perfectly silent, which is
creepy. Very creepy.
I awkwardly realize, after about thirty seconds because I'm
a dumbass, that they are talking about me.
Now, I know I have long lashes, but they're not bizarrely long. They're not like fake-Phyllis-Diller
long. They're just … long. My late husband's lashes were long. All of my kids have long lashes. We're a long-lashed kind of family.
I don't find this statement to be untrue, but I am suddenly
flabbergasted. I've been teaching these
kids every single school day since the beginning of September. Some of them I see a couple of times a day
for an additional study class. They have
had to look at me for more than sixty days, and it is funny that they're seeing
my eyelashes for the first time. It's
not weird or stalkerish that they mention my lashes. Kids say stuff all the time about themselves,
each other, and the staff. They say
things about clothing, jewelry, hats, shoes, speech tics, and even comment on
my multitude of glasses (I buy 'em cheap and have probably a dozen or so pairs
I wear interchangeably). I simply find
it odd that no one seems to have noticed my eyelashes before, nor that they
would need to notice them at this moment.
Then I do what I always do when someone says or does
something bizarre. I find a way to make
it funny inside my head. I start smiling
in that dopey, "Uh-oh, the teacher is thinking an evil thought" kind
of way, because now the last line of A
Christmas Carol will forever be, "God bless us every one, and
whoooooa, you have loooooooong eyelashes!"
I shrug my shoulders at my silent reverie, finish passing out papers,
and the kids all get back to work doing exactly what they were doing before any
of them noticed my eyelashes. The
moment, as it was, is gone.
I'm not sure that's what Dickens intended for an ending, but
this revised line, "God bless us every one, and whoooooooooa, you have
loooooooooong lashes," works for me.
It is a strange moment; it is a funny moment. It is an awkward moment; it is an innocent
moment. It is the best of times; it is the
worst of times. And I am going to cry
all over my long lashes when these kids move on in one hundred twenty more
days. They're a pleasant, albeit
unobservant, lot.
