we're not here to help

Saturday was the Walk for the Cure to find a cure for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and raise awareness of it. Indeed, it was a day to raise many things to a person’s awareness. Many of my friends from the faculty went on this walk; entranced by the siren song of helping others, free lunch, trip to the Zoo and a t-shirt, we gathered before even God has had his coffee in the school parking lot. Indeed, before today I did not even know what MS was or what it did. I am aware that Ann Romney has MS and so does President Josiah Bartlett. If I were asked to take a quiz on the disease I would most assuredly fail.

Before even leaving for school however my awareness was raised to the fact that one of the homeless people who frequent our neighborhood enjoys standing behind cars that are backing up. My neighbor is an attorney and was out at the same ungodly hour and exposed this plot to extort money from people hurrying to work. In turn I raised the homeless man’s awareness of the fact that I had every intention of running him over if he was going to continue to stand by my car to fake an accident. If he wanted to spend the day in my trunk he was welcome to get hit by my car. I had no intention of being late.

Once at school the carpool departed for the walk in Tempe. On the way to the walk Mark made us all aware of the importance of listening for the directions, which I of course did not. I am a horrible driver and whoever licensed me should be shot. Mark was driving and I felt like he should be the one listening, Mark however differed in this opinion. Of course, it didn’t help that I kept him on the right track for most of the drive by pointing out where we should go. I only knew where to go because I was tracking one of the student’s mother’s Porsche and kicked myself for not driving because my Volkswagen has the same engine. I would have kept up.

I should know better than to trust Mark because Mark should know better than to trust me. I get lost in my own house. I get lost in my school. I get lost at the grocery. I was really starting to question Mark’s intelligence but we eventually found the start of the walk when Stefanie – our school’s organizer called us angry and redirected us.

We were all reminded of the dangers of port-a-potties when Mark used one. I, too, needed to relieve myself and held it until I got home. Sure, I was uncomfortable and turned my irritation on those around me but I was certainly not going to get into a port-a-potty. Yes, the students there were all from the National Junior Honor Society but that means nothing to me! What self-respecting Junior High student wouldn’t rush the port-a-potty containing their villainous History teacher? I know that if one of the kids I didn’t like had climbed in I would have locked them in and knocked them over. Indeed, a ‘lock and knock’ is one of the few remaining Boy Scout skills I have.

Mark really took his life in his hands going into that closet of doom and lucky for him, he is beloved of the students. The only danger to Mark, beyond my driving and sense of direction, would seem to be Mark. Mark managed to lose his sunglasses in the port-a-potty. This, despite having one of those lovely cords on his glasses that assure people that while Mark is a heterosexual by his complete lack of style he is conversely subconsciously uninterested in, or afraid of, being approached by the opposite sex. Despite this cord he lost his glasses and felt it important to note that he’s lost more than one pair of glasses and a cell phone this way. If experience is the mother of Learning then I am afraid Mark may be an orphan.

Finally, we began the walk. The walk wound its way through the Phoenix Zoo and Arizona’s Botanical Garden. I was surprised that my classroom during the seventh period was not the Phoenix Zoo and was going to tell Valerie this but when I turned around to see her I saw Walker & Texas Ranger from seventh period. I faced forward in shock and bemusement. Was it really Walker & Texas Ranger? Would they get up at an ungodly hour and walk for the good of others? I turned around again and they had caught up with Valerie and were walking by her – completely unaware that they had merged into a group of teachers from their school. After a few minutes I decided that I would say something to them because by this point they MUST know that they were with us. No, they did not.

The look on their faces when I turned to address them was only matched in hilarity by the look they had when they realized they were marching along next to their English teacher and had been boxed in by their gym teacher. Forgetting myself, I addressed them as Walker and Texas Ranger (respectively, unrespectfully) and in their own horror they ran off, tripping over a series of traffic ones on their way. Later, I text messaged my student aide – who is in NJHS with Valerie’s son and ahead of us on the hike – to warn him. As he was trying decipher the message he was horrified to see Walker and Texas Ranger bounding around the corner.

We finally entered the Zoo from the parking lot after what seemed like hours but was really at most a quarter mile. Upon arrival we quickly surmised that the free walk through the Zoo was paid for in part by the animals being asleep. Valerie’s husband found the first live animal in the zoo, shouting: “Hey, guys look! There is a woman with a shovel.” Later it became my business to take pictures of the humans in cages and when questioned on this by Valerie’s daughter I commented that I was a journalist of the world and it was my duty to record things as I saw them and in all things, “I am not here to help, only to observe and pass judgment.”

Valerie teaches with me all day, every day and still thinks it’s a good idea to leave me around her own children. The sad thing is, she is pregnant and it is a wonder what her fetus is picking up from me while it incubates. Humans apparently learn in the womb and I shudder to think what I may be teaching the little wiener.

Eventually, we happened upon actual animals at the zoo, first in the form of a tortoise from the Galapagos Islands. A very elderly zoo volunteer was regaling us with facts and answering questions about the tortoise when she mentioned that it was one hundred years old. Since she was engaged in Socratic discussion I asked if she and the tortoise shared a birthday. I knew that it was okay to ask because the woman seemed to be of good humor and if she wasn’t I was confident that I was out of her bell-tone hearing range. Valerie still elbowed me heartily in the ribs for my malediction. I am confident in my next incarnation or in the evolution of the Spritopias Idiotic species an extra elbow near the ribs will be included for just this reason. I moved out of her range before offering her daughter twenty dollars to jump the fence and climb on the tortoise. The daughter wisely declined.

There were other wonders at the Zoo behold. There where cheetahs darting about, looking for away to escape. There were bears and upon hearing that some of the bears were hibernating one of the four year olds in our party exclaimed, “wake them up.” . There were baboons giving the children a lesson in sex education as well. I could not have been happier to be around my friend’s elementary and primary aged children and not own our adolescent students and children who had given us the slip. A baboon masturbating is an uncomfortable thing to encounter; encountering it with children who have – excuse the pun – first hand knowledge of this would be awkward.

Okay, don’t excuse the pun. I did it on purpose.

Beyond the Animals there were other things at the Zoo that I had not expected to see. Unfortunately, the Zoo was invaded not only by people drawn in by the pied piper of free lunch and a t-shirt, the Zoo was also invaded by a legion of nerds that Melody had inadvertently allowed to escape the Forest of Nerds. Dork Vader was present with a detachment of Storm Troopers, some sort of half-Wookie, half-Hutt man thing and a gaggle of Boba Fetts. If this was not enough – and I submit that it was more than enough – there were also pirates and wenches from the Renaissance Fair or something else equally disquieting. I am not saying these are bad people, I am saying “count the parrots and examine the sheep for injury.”

After this walk we were rewarded with the promise free lunch and the always-unusual society of eighth graders – seventh graders not yet being inducted into the NJHS. Walker and Texas Ranger were about playing catch with a rat that professional duty bound me to investigate – even if they weren’t technically my charges at the moment. It was a rubber rat, thank God (or whatever demon you worship) because those two would not think anything of playing with a rat, dead or alive.

It’s fitting, I would do anything for a free lunch (and t-shirt) because I am not here to help (only to observe and pass judgment).

Comments

[Suburban Island]

My favorite line in this post has to be: If experience is the mother of Learning then I am afraid Mark may be an orphan.

[Spritopias]

Poor Mark, he was born with a silver spoon in the toilet.

[Calulu]

Heheheheh... trapping a teacher in a portajohn, what an evil thought. You were right to avoid those smelly things.

[boxx]

I'm teaching 6th grade this year. 2 periods of Ancient History, 2 periods of Art and 1 of English.