All this time … I spent
all this time thinking I was right. How
could I be so wrong?
If you read this blog with
any regularity (as in your reading habits and not your colon), then you know I’ve
spent the last few months of work without windows. Until three weeks ago.
I am so damn excited to
have windows again that I open them every day, regardless of the
temperature. Part of this is because it’s
so great to have fresh air at work again, and part of this is menopausal hot
flashes that could take down a despot government. I am so freaking happy to have windows that I
go out and buy expandable screens to keep the bees and flies and errant geese
and rabid squirrels out of my classroom.
But today … well, after
today, my habits will change.
For the last few days I
have been coming into my room after lunch and noticing a terrible stench. This morning I complain to my colleagues that
I wish someone would tell these twelve-year-olds that it’s time to start
showering and using deodorant, daily, if necessary. Yes, tell them daily and have them use
deodorant daily. I think, “They must
talk a lot because their breath stinks!
This room reeks!”
Today, though, I got my
foot planted squarely into my mouth.
Today I realized that the horrible stench is not coming from my
students. It is coming from the leach
field outside, and the aroma is wafting in through my wide-open windows.
Windows. The same windows I have been waiting months
and months to open. Well, not exactly
the same because I’m in a different room, but windows, nonetheless.
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This isn’t karma. This isn’t the universe pissing on me. This, folks, this is the irony that is my
life. I finally get windows and now I
can’t open them because it smells like a sewer outside of my room.
Not only am I completely
and utterly disappointed with my new-found dilemma, I am horribly disappointed
in myself for blaming the smelly atmosphere on a bunch of innocent, if slightly
ripe by their own means, children.
Well, at least when I
start putting air fresheners all over the room, the kiddos won’t be too
offended.
Here’s the truly and
deeply horrifying part, though. If I can
smell the stink when I walk into my room from the hallway --- What exactly are
they thinking about ME when THEY come in and get a whiff?
Oh, shit. I’ll bet they’re wondering when I’m going to
shower and use deodorant.
Now THAT’S the real bitch
of karma, ironic or not.
