JANITOR: (making a sad
face) Hey. Whatcha doing up there on
that window sill?
ME: Closing the
windows.
JANITOR: Be
careful. You’re going to fall!
ME: (shaking head
and smiling) Nah. I’m careful. (Puts the side of one foot on the sill and
guides giant glass pane’s descent with other foot.) I do this all the time. It’s the only way to shut the windows. (Points to multiple desks and chairs nearby.) Look.
LOOK! I have this whole safety
system set up. I’m not going to fall.
JANITOR: You’re going
to fall.
ME: I’m NOT going
to FALL.
JANITOR: If you fall –
ME: I’m not going
to fall. But, if I do fall, you can
laugh. (Foot presses down onto sill, and
clip-locks that are on the window snap into place.)
This same ritual repeats
itself over and over again. Today I stay
for an additional two hours at school.
One of my former students has come by, and he insists that he can help
me with the window-closing ritual. I
decline his chivalrous offer and step up on my elaborately mismatched ladder: A student desk, the small and useless room
heater, the wooden bookshelf, and the sill.
As soon as my foot secures
the latches and I hear them pop into place, I blindly place my left foot on the
desk. I blindly … I say, I place my foot
…
Oh. Shit.
In my hurry to wrap up the
day’s activities and get home, I have failed to set up my little safety area to
its usual standard. The desk is about a
foot away from where I expect it and my left foot touches nothing but thin air.
I’m going down.
I madly flail my right
foot toward the heater in attempt to soften the blow. Unfortunately I have recently (like an hour
before) placed two large metal hole punchers on the heater. I step on one of the hole punchers, slip even
more, and come to the lightning-fast realization that I am going to fall hard.
And I do. I land squarely on my tailbone.
My former student rushes
over, as I have scared the absolute shit right out of him. He has just witnessed his teacher take a not
so graceful five foot freefall without a net.
He offers me his hand, genuinely interested in my well-being.
I not only hurt my ass,
but now I feel like one, as well.
After my student leaves, and
he truly believes that I am all right, I limp down to the office. The vice principal is there, and I have to
explain to him that I fell and what I was doing (closing my windows ala
Spiderman) and who witnessed the debacle.
VICE PRINCIPAL: (eyebrows
raised) Did you hurt yourself?
ME:
(sheepishly) Yes. (long pause)
In addition to hurting my pride … I think I broke my ass.
He hands me the accident
paperwork, and I slink out of the office, having a great deal of difficulty walking
back up the multiple ramps to my classroom.
I still have not fully recovered from Achilles Tendonitis in both legs,
and this new development is not helping.
I now waddle like I have a dump in my pants.
It dawns on me that the
janitor who is always yelling at me for doing stuff by myself (moving entire
rooms full of junk when I am reassigned to another wing, carrying boxes,
lifting furniture, etc.), the guy who berated me for building these ladders to
the windows in the first place, is going to find out what I have done. I can hear it now –
JANITOR: So … you
fell. I told you that you were going to
fall.
ME: Slow down so I
can waddle over there and kick you, if only I could lift my leg higher than
three inches.
Unbelievable. In school one month and already I’ve
committed the ultimate in stupidity. I broke my own damn ass.
Oh well. As one kind and sympathetic friend pointed
out, at least I didn’t hurtle through the glass. That would’ve really left a mark. Reminds me of an old joke:
If I had a million dollars, I’d by a new butt because
my old one is cracked.
Now it’s cracked in two
places. Guess I’ll be standing for a
while. And waddling. And living in a classroom with windows that I
cannot and will not open without taking my life into my hands.
I guess I should’ve
listened: Be careful. You’re going to
fall.
