On Saturday I'm up at the ass-crack of dawn, just after 5:00
a.m., and I cannot fall back asleep.
Part of the reason is because I nap for an hour Friday evening on the
couch. The other part of the reason is a
school email I receive.
The email contains a detailed list of what teachers must do
to get out of the building on time on Tuesday at 11:21 (but who's counting?). We are moving temporarily to the old high
school for a year while our school gets remodeled and connected to the new
school, so everything, and I do mean everything,
has to be packed into crates, and the crates must be packed in increments of
four crates to a stack. No more, no less.
The last full week of school has been fraught with fun
activities that keep interrupting our attempts to close grades. Truth-- The field trip to the Aquarium to
watch a 3-D movie about Great White sharks is way cool, and Friday's field day
goes off without a hitch (except for my finger and one kid's mouth). Another truth -- I need to finish
packing. I need time alone in my
classroom.
Which brings me back to the email… Nonchalantly placed near
the bottom of the extensive list of bullet points is the information that the
building will be open on Saturday from 7:00 a.m. until 2:00 p.m.
I haven't put in a Saturday school day since I was in fifth
grade and we had so many snow days in our small New Hampshire town that we had
to put in some half-day Saturday classes.
I remember it fondly: the bus partially-full as the high schoolers
either had sports, work, or sleeping to do, and we youngsters in our most
casual Saturday attire. As long as we
hit a certain attendance percentage and put in a half day, that state didn't
care what we did, so we made puppets out of paper mache, put on plays, and
played games.
I honestly have no intention of going in on Saturday, but
the email eats away at me, and I wake up at 5:00 a.m. (remember - I took an
hour-long nap before hitting my regular sleep cycle), completely restless and
ready to go finish this packing. I head
off, water bottle in hand, and stop off at Dunkins for a blueberry muffin.
As soon as I near the school, I notice another car on the
road with me, and I watch from my rearview mirror as it pulls into the parking
lot. It's another English teacher,
arriving to pack up her room, as well.
Our electronic fobs don't work, so we knock on the metal front door and
grab the attention of the workers who are already there prepping the move and
collecting our desktop computers.
I am an expert packer and have moved classrooms seven times
in the fifteen years I've been at the school, but I must abandon my boxes and
pack everything into crates, which I do with incredible precision. I also clear out one of my filing cabinets,
and stuff much of what I might need over the next few days (like markers,
writing utensils, headache medication) into it.
Before I have a chance to get to the serious work of the
day, which includes going through my desk, packing up pens and pencils and
thumbtacks and staples removers, etc., the vice principal comes by with a
drill. He is removing usable white
boards to stockpile at the old high school in case we need them. We take down two of my three boards because
they are still somewhat coated, and we discover pristine blackboards
beneath. I am so excited about this that
I start babbling, "Is there any chalk in the office? Tell me we have chalk in the office! Please, please, please. I need chalk.
I need chalk right now!"
Unfortunately the one box of chalk left in the school has been packed,
so I write myself a note to buy white and colored chalk when I leave the
building today. I am so going to color
on my chalkboards on Monday and Tuesday.
I even wash them down to make sure they are ready for me at 7:30 a.m.
when the last full-day of the school year starts.
I have already packed most of my personal files and school
paraphernalia, so I decide to tackle the large pile of text books that belong
to grade seven English. I get to the
last crate and still have room for nineteen more hardcover anthologies.
Another English teacher has shown up (what the hell is wrong
with us, anyway?!), and I sneak through her class to grab nineteen more text
books from a stockpile in the room connected to hers. Closing the top flap of crate #16, I have
packed my room up completely, packed up my class library of hundreds of novels,
my class set of dictionaries, my class set of writing books, my class set of
anthologies, and my class set of the grade-level novel. I have also packed up more than three hundred
extra books. There is not one whisper of
spare room in the crates, they are stacked four high as instructed, and I am
smugly pleased with myself.
Until (there must always be an "until" in these
tales) one of the other English teachers mentions we are supposed to take our
printers with us. I thought the printer
would be part of the tech-computer collection, but apparently not. Sonofabitch. There is no more room in my file cabinet, and
the crates are packed to the gills. I
refuse to go grab four more crates to pack a printer because then I will be
madly obsessed with filling them all, and I will end up packing up another
English teacher's textbooks just to fulfill my OCD.
The vice principal comes by for a second time. I ask him about the printer, and he tells me
to go get another crate. No, I tell him, I'm not packing another set of crates.
I am packed to perfection. He
instructs me to put a sticker on the printer with my new room number on
it. Will
that get it to the high school? I ask.
Yes, he assures me, after the movers plop it into a crate. So much for space economy. Oh well.
I put a sticker on it.
I leave Saturday School feeling damn good about myself
knowing that I have packed better than anyone in the known universe, that, like
my brother Chris, who is an expert packer/mover/storer, and our father before
us, I, too, have inherited the Perfect Packing gene.
This feeling is wonderful and sustains me. Until (wow, two "untils" in this
tale can only be bad news) … until I wake up in a cold sweat at 5:00 Sunday
morning and realize that the movers now have to unpack everything that I have
packed, bit by bit, book by book, piecemeal by piecemeal. This also means that it will be loose all
over my new room, and that the summer janitorial staff may flip out having to
move it all to clean the rooms for the new school year.
Damn damn damn damn
damn damn!
WHY did I not just load the books into boxes and load the
boxes into the crates? Oh yeah. Because originally we were told we could only
have four crates, so I stuffed them as full as scientifically possible. I was just following directions.
I roll around and let this thought invade my brain for like
an hour, then I get up at 6:00 a.m. and send an email to the vice principal,
explaining my conundrum. Should I repack everything? Should I leave a note of apology inside each
top crate? Should I volunteer to roll
all the crates to the high school (halfway down a rather steep but small
hill and around the corner)? Crap. What to do, what to do.
The vice principal assures me that I can probably get into
my new classroom on Friday. I will take
the remainder of the boxes that I had been giving away (no more), along with a
bunch of shopping bags, and organize what I can of the loose books after the
unfortunate workers have to unload the bins.
Now my perfect packing seems like a perfect flop.
Tell you what. When
next spring rolls around, I need YOU people to remember this conversation. Remind me:
Pack the damn books into boxes and fit the boxes inside the crates. BRILLIANT.
A day late and a dollar short, but brilliant, just the same.
Now, if I can just remember to bring a tape measure with me
so I can measure the insides of the crate to see just what size boxes will fit
the best, I'll be in great shape… for next June.
