Yes, that one hour a week when my teammate and I must sit at a table in the space between two giant plate-glass windows directly in front of the semi-secure main entrance. Given all the recent school violence and our flairs for the dramatic, we dub hall duty "Waiting to Be Shot." After all, she and I are realists.
We have spotted other teachers taking their turns at hall duty. Instead of sitting directly in the sight-line of the parking lot and the woods beyond, teachers are setting up in the more secure open work space between the science labs, about one hundred yards away from the glassed-in entryway.
During lunch, the grade-level teachers briefly discuss the hall duty dilemma. Slowly it dawns on my teammate and me that we are the only two teachers still doing our hall duty in the see-through vestibule. "It's cold," "It's drafty," "it's creepy." (Just an assortment of unscripted lunchtime commentary.) Maybe we realists should talk it out for clarity.
TEAMMATE: What I don't like about hall duty is when parents show up and expect us to let them in to the building.
ME: What I don't like about hall duty is that the people in the office can watch us like we're fish in a bowl.
TEAMMATE: What I don't like about hall duty is that it's freezing cold in the front entryway and our tea gets cold too fast.
ME: What I don't like about hall duty is that we're near the nurse's office so all the sick kids stroll by and breathe on us.
TEAMMATE: What I don't like about hall duty is that I always forget something important in my room and can't go get it.
ME: What I don't like about hall duty is that I'm directly in the firing line of anyone and everyone doing target practice.
TEAMMATE: Yes, we both worry about an intruder invasion.
ME: Damn straight! If I get shot and my entrails end up all over the windows, everyone will see what's left of my liver.
We both return happily to our lunches, suddenly realizing that everyone else has stopped eating theirs. Uh-oh. Too much? A woman across the table from us starts to giggle. A couple of others are frozen mid-bite with arched eyebrows. A few roll their eyes.
Ooops. My visual has ruined lunch again, apparently. Oh, well. Hopefully no one's having liver for dinner. Personally, I believe the privacy surrounding the state of my liver a valid concern, but, then again, I am a realist.
