The Halls Have Ears

My life is a cheap rip-off of a horror movie. No The Hills Have Eyes for moi. I'm in the extremely low-budget version, The Halls Have Ears, made for free, without professional actors, improvised... without even a camera to record the storyline. Or as we call it: real life. It's a horror movie without even the horror. For viewers. The horror lies in the mind of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom.

Between classes, a part of my contracted services requires me to stand in the hallway, beside my classroom door, watching the world pass by. This is not so much to get me up off my cushy behind so it doesn't grow into my chair, as it is a forewarned is forearmed exercise.

Like a dog with his head under the couch thinks he is invisible, the students passing by in the hall think they are in a cone of silence. You would be amazed at the number of fights that have been avoided by observing students swarming to a specific location, or certain students running up to others to whisper excitedly and end loudly with a time and location for after school. The swift cancellation of Kick a Freshman Day can be credited to alert hall-spies. As can ChewGate, SkipGate, and WaterGunGate.

Like John Denver sang, Some Days are Diamond, Some Days are Stone. Most of the time, you get the trivial day-to-day conversations. On occasion, you pick up the key information needed to prevent a major event. Today was stone.

A lanky lad and his girlfriend walked down the hall. He held her hand with his left, and carried a fake baby in a child seat with his right. It was their fake-baby turn for FACS class. A giraffe-looking boy loped past, weaving his way through the predators on his own private savanna. Giraffe turned and looked down at the fake baby.

"It looks better than most I've seen."

"Thanks. I get that a lot."

Something tells me Lank was funnin' with Giraffe, and not necessarily referring to his fake baby.

An hour later, true horror reared its ugly head. Three freshman girls stormed past, in the dramatic way of walking that freshmen girls have, three abreast, charging after prey of the senior variety. Freshman females are unable to stalk efficiently, due to their shrill call, the giggle. The prey most often escapes. But not today.

"Did he touch you?"

"Yes! Finally!"

They breezed past, made a slight adjustment in the ranks to fit through the double-door with a center post, and performed a quick about-face to fall in step with the prey. One of the little predators could not contain herself.

"Hand check!"

The entire episode made me queasy. These are somebody's daughters. Fourteen years old. Stalking an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old man. Who wants to know that the prey touched the predator? Not me! That's so icky-poo that I need a brain scrub the likes of Meryl Streep's Karen Silkwood cleansing. With the wire brushes.

Let's hope that the predator was fabricating. Let's hope that the prey understands the consequences of his age of majority. Let's hope that it was a butt-pat only. Let's hope that it was not during school time.

Let's hope.