IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL ... AGAIN

Today is the first day of school for the students.  Lucky them, and lucky teachers!

You see, when the students return, it means we don't have to sit through endless staff meetings that drone on and on and on into eternity.  I actually impersonated one of my brothers yesterday and cat-napped with my eyes open during the district-wide snooze fest.  I knew one of the elementary principals was watching me because I had already started the head-bobbing routine, and he spotted me from clear across the auditorium.  I pulled it off, though.  It may have only been a minute or so, but no one was the wiser, and I didn't even drool.

But today the kiddos return.  I get a whole new crop of kids and a whole new pile of minutiae to worry about -- collecting forms, making seating charts, and trying to figure out which bizarre name belongs to a boy and which to a girl.  Even "Michael" isn't sacred anymore.

I'm not one of those teachers who refuses to smile until Christmas.  I crack jokes from Day One.  Lord knows if we all have to be there, it shouldn't be bloody torture.  This isn't Queen Elizabeth I's court, for crimeny's sake; no reason to off their damn heads the first day.

So far we're down to one copy machine and the construction guys hit a sewer line outside my window (or they discovered an underground sulfur deposit, or one of them ate a really nasty breakfast).  The weather hasn't broken, it's supposed to be in the 80's (with no a/c), and if the humidity level is even close to yesterday, we shall all have melted like Asimov's Sakkaro family by noontime ("Rain, Rain, Go Away" - a short story I highly recommend).

Okay, I'm off to the races.  Wish me luck!  Better yet, wish the kids luck; they're the suckers stuck with me for an entire year.  Poor bastards.

I'll let you know how it all works out.