February 23, 2010

• Give My Creation...
  
  LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFEE!!!
  The Daily News
  

  1   Great moment comin' right up!

  2   A coupla night's ago I threw a pizza into the oven and let it cook for like about two years. I sorta misread the instructions, so this suckuh was turnin' dark pretty quickly.

  3   By the time I realized that the crust instructions sucked, it was too late. Realizing that time was of the essence, I opened the oven to a blast of hot air.

  4   "GIVE MY CREATION...LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIFFEE!!!" I screamed, a mad scientist and crazed, insane creator.

  5   Actually I didn't REALLY do that, but the moment sure felt as though I had.

  6   I did try to get the thing out of the oven as swiftly as possible.

  7   In the process, a maverick piece of hot pepperoni leaped off the pizza and unto my forearm. It sizzled, burned, I screamed, and the pizza flipped to the ground, landing as one might expect, face down.

  8   The famed "Three-Second Rule" went into immediate effect, but by then, I already had torrents of cold water splashing all over my wrist, which had turned a bright shade of red.

  9   The water kept it at bay, and we were able to enjoy a rather crunchy coupla pizzas, but later I looked at this blister that had formed. It turned into a large, sore bubble. We've all had 'em.

  10  Still, the next day I had to nurse the injury, and did a darned skippy job.

  11  Well, by yesterday, all the pain had subsided, and the injury didn't look so bad, but I did want to hide it from the masses.

  12  Suddenly, it dawned on me that earlier this year, a student had brought me Scooby Doo Band Aids for my classes.

  13  Between classes, I opened my drawer, and there they were, one of the best gifts any student ever gave me.

  14   If you ever want to make a teacher happy, give him or her a new box of Scooby Doo Band Aids. The students love them, and will bond as a result of them. They make any injury easier to take, and they usually result in lots of smiles.

  15   Anywho, I saw that I still had six or seven left, so pulled a green one out, took scissors to it, and placed it gently over my healing wound.

  16   Shortly thereafter, normal teaching things jumped my way, and I held them all at bay with what felt like the sword Excalibur.

  17   I taught as best I could, held court, and enjoyed the entire day. I knew I entered Monday battle prepared, and was rather cocky, and delivering one-liners with a wink and a swagger.

  18   But by the end of the day, I had begun to run out of gas.

  19   I still went on with the lesson, when suddenly one kid chimed out, "Hey Mr. H, what happened to your wrist?"

  20   I answered that I was making a pizza, and that a renegade piece of pepperoni had landed on the underside of my wrist, culminating in this tiny Scooby Doo Band Aid.

  21   I figured that would take care of the inquiry.

  22   Wrong.

  23   After a brief silence, the same kid said, "You sure you haven't gone EMO on us?"

  24   Yeesh.

  25   I just smiled, rolled my eyes, and said, "Nah, you guys haven't driven me yet to slashing my wrists with spoons quite yet. It's a pepperoni injury."

  26   
  

  

   
  27   Emo.

  28   Don't get me goin'.

  29   AnywayZ, just thought I'd share a great teaching moment. Sign of the times, I imagine.

  30   Moving on, Part 1:  For the second straight night, I found myself awakening at 2 a.m and finishing up the DN. You can always tell when the grading period is coming to an end, because I begin going to sleep at around 9:30 or 10 p.m. Grading papers is not hard work, but it does make one sleepy after a while, so the hours get odd rather quickly.

   

  31   Last night I got home, wrote the DN early, and then conked out. I awakened at the fine old hour of 2 a.m., wrote a few emails to friends, and then jumped back on the DN.

   

  32  Sometimes I can't even remember what it was I had been writing about only hours earlier, so it is fun to see the pizza story blasting away like a midnight furnace.

   

  33  The fun thing is, I was sill going past 3 a.m. when I looked at my right arm and saw that the Scooby Doo Band Aid was still on my wrist. It seems like much more time has passed since all of that, so time has suddenly distorted.

   

  35   I'm never really sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it IS all relative.

   

  36   Anyway, it IS an isolated hour, so I think it might be best to bow out a bit gracefully this fine Tuesday.

   

  37  There's this sort of ringing sound that is either in my imagination, or is really occurring, like some strange UFO is making a Twilight Zone landing in the other room. It fades in and out with my imagination, so I do think it best to pull the covers over my head and lie in some much-needed comfort.

  

   

  38   (He does.) Hey. It's dark in here. Lemme out. Lemme out!

   

  39   Haha, just kidding. You shouldn't write at odd hours.

   

  40    I  just now looked around and saw no UFO's. The ringing is still happening, and I am waiting for some crow to land on my teevee and look strangely at me. Everything in the room seems alive right now, which is typical of awakening at some odd hour. Shapes become shadows, which become silhouettes of people, which then become coats,and the ringing continues.

   

  41   And so it goes in the middle of the night.

   
  

   

  42   It's all good. In no time, the world will become peaceful once again, the morning will drift in, I'll have a warm cuppa, and the day will refresh. Meanwhile, I'd better get outta here while the gettin's good.

   

  43   You have yourself a good one, willya? That's about it for today.

   

  44    Peace.

  

   

  ~H~

  

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  • 10:07 am
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