BREAKFAST AT THE CONFERENCE

My teammate and I attend a conference together.  We both teach the same grade and the same subject in the same school, and that's about where the similarities should end.  However, over this past year, we discover that we have more in common than we originally thought.

Often we stay late and work In our rooms getting organized.  Our rooms are side by side.  We make pacts with each other about leaving at a certain time or after a certain chore or after we'd walked down to check our mail.  Inevitably when we finally do leave school after a long day, our cars are the only ones in the lot, and they're parked side by side.

We carry over this mentality to our summer conference, a one-day shindig.  My teammate's new(er) car decides to cause trouble.  It turns out to be nothing major, but, for safety and sanity's sake, I offer to pick her up on the way since she is right off of the highway we're traveling.  This is helpful as she can be my second set of eyes.  Yes, I have WAZE and a GPS device, but old-school still wins out.

The conference is several towns away, and we arrive exactly on time, which means we are two of the first few people who've trickled into the foyer for the 8:00 check-in.  Breakfast is set up for the conference with enough food to feed the entire hotel where the meeting is scheduled to take place.  The ballroom, big enough to seat hundreds, is completely set up.  More people start to arrive, and we realize that if many more show up, we might not be able to muscle our way into breakfast, which has everything: fruit, muffins, croissants, cereals, yogurts, baked goods, tea, coffee, juice, et al.

Even though we are early and have the relative run of the room, we set down our materials folders on a table close to the front then head toward the breakfast table.  My co-worker goes to the food table; I head for the hot tea, which I put in a mug, and the orange juice, which I put in a plastic cup.  I drop the tea and juice off at the empty (except for our materials) table, circle around, and go in for the breakfast kill.  Meanwhile, my partner in crime circles around a different way and sits down at our table.

I finally get back to join her.  We are in the midst of an animated conversation when I look down at our plates. I stop abruptly mid-sentence and stare.  Then, my teammate stares.  We both break out into grins and cannot decide if we've spent too much time together lately, or perhaps we had been separated at birth.

I won't spoil it -- look at the picture.  Judge for yourself.  And yes, I really am that startled (and entertained) by our plates of food.  I draw the line, though, if and when we start wearing matching outfits, although that truly does seem to be the natural progression of these things.