Today started with the great lockout of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom.
Upon arriving at Newmentia, I put my key into the lock of my classroom door, and discovered that it would turn neither clockwise nor counterclockwise. The key slid in completely, but refused to rotate. The key that I have used for the last ten years.
I did what any other idiot would have done, and pulled out the key and stared at it. Students strolled by, flaunting their unruliness, since everybody knows that students belong in the cafeteria or gym until first bell. Nobody dared question my breaking-and-entering technique.
When my visual assault on that key did not work, I focused my anger on the lock. I slid in the key, then shook it. Shook it like a beagle pup shakes a stuffed red devil that appears on the Mansion porch in the night. That lock still would not give it up.
Drastic measures were called for. So I left the key in the lock, and wrenched that door-handle lever up and down, scrinching and scrunching its innards like the joint mice behind my kneecaps every time I sit or stand. That was futile.
I rested for a minute. All that exertion made me feel like the little spoiled gal last night on MTV's I Used To Be Fat. The one who got the army veteran for a trainer, and cried every time he wanted her to take a step. Especially when he tied that tire-on-a-rope to her waist and told her to run up that little hill. But I digress...
I tromped down the hall to Mr. Principal's office, thankfully without a tire trailing behind me on a rope, because I had no tears left, what with shedding them in a fit of poor me while sitting in T-Hoe in the driveway this morning waiting for #1 to drag himself out of my daily nightmare and into the car. Mr. Principal said that sometimes the locks go crazy. After taking a couple of phone calls (because why would a teacher need to get into her room, anyway, before the tardy bell) he brought his marvelous master key and slid it right into my doorifice. He pushed that door handle smoothly south, like butter, and pulled open the door. VOILA! He couldn't have done it better in a cape and top hat. Then Mr. Principal said that my key would probably work now, after the application of his magic touch, and IT DID!
I hope that little repair lasts for the next ten year.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Did you want to slap him?
Keys in general are a pain when you have to use as many as I had when I taught. Everything had to be kept under lock and key. I felt like a prison warden you see in a movie with that giant metal circular key ring! Slows the day's progress significantly trying to balance armloads of teaching materials while simultaneously finding, inserting, turning a key and pushing the door open. So much time lost to such everyday trivialities used to stress me out because it made me feel as if I was always in a race to accomplish anything in a timely manner and stick to any kind of achedule. In fact, now when I see the large, consolidated schools that have taken the place of many smaller neighborhood schools I think they look like prisons. Sad...
Kathy,
I was so happy to finally gain entrance to my workplace that I did not think of slapping him. Until now.
knancy,
Now we have a different kind of security. Every morning, I have to sign on to get my computer running, then log on to PowerSchool so I can take attendance and lunch count, then log on to email so I don't miss any vital meetings or instructions, then log on to PowerGrade so I can record scores.
That's four loggings to get up and running. And I don't dare go an hour without using one of them, or I will have to log in again.
The old red gradebook was much more lackadaisical about the whole teaching experience.
Post a Comment