HIDING INSIDE THE BUSTED COPY MACHINE

Somewhere in an alternate universe, a gentler, more patient Heliand exists.  Here, though, in this reality -- not so much.  For example, I fully support the concept of senior citizens volunteering in public offices in order to reduce their tax burdens.  However, much like a liberal claiming to support the poor, NIMBY.

You see, our senior citizen, as lovely a person as she may be, is more of Typhoid Mary than a school assistant.  Back in the old school when we all shared one copy room, she was notorious for misprinting orders and busting machinery.

 Akin to an anti-Midas, everything she touches go haywire.

On the flip side, though, against these self-created odds, she manages to be remarkably productive, sometimes too much so (like the time I ordered 250 copies of a graphic organizer and ended up with 780).  During her previous tenure with our school, luckily she managed to complete copy orders in an almost I-Love-Lucy way.  This means that I have a love/hate relationship with our senior citizen: I love her help, but I hate when she parks herself in front of the copy machine to the peril of the rest of us who need to get simple and/or immediate jobs done.

I am somewhat ashamed and yet somewhat unsurprised by my negative reaction to the email notification that Typhoid Mary is returning.  I am under a deadline to get a major paper done and my presentation copied and stapled; plus, I don't feel all that well and would feel better having a few days' worth of work prepped.  Now that there are three prep/copy rooms in the school, one for each grade level, I figure I'm golden.

Wrong.

Our hapless senior is assigned to my planning room, my copy machine, my space.  Please, do not misunderstand me: I do not wish her any ill will; what I wish is for her to go to another copy room.  Why?  Because I remember all too well the debacle of the 780 random copies and the endless tales of busted copiers.  I remember that she is Typhoid Mary.

I am not disappointed.  Within six hours of her arrival, the brand new copy machine in the planning room has seized up so badly, been damaged so severely, that service must be called.  My temperature rises as I start wondering if I am just super-pissed or if she is spreading her typhoid germs around my entire wing of the school.

Yup.  Somewhere in an alternate universe, a kinder, gentler Heliand exists.  I suspect she's hiding inside the broken copy machine because she sure as hell isn't standing here with me.