Tuesday, November 8, 2005

Distractions

I’m not generally a picky teacher.

I’m cheerful in the face of tardiness, quick to sign the pass to the nurse’s office, and tolerant of the incessant construction noise at my new school.

“What was THAT?” a student wondered as the roof shook and clattered alarmingly last week.

“Hmmm,” I said, pausing for a moment, “I’m not sure!” And then I frowned briefly at the ceiling, and brought the class right back to the gerund in the sentence of the week. I was the model of unflappability.

I was less than impenetrable, however, on Monday because that’s the day the rodents decided to show themselves.

I had heard rumors about the infestation, but I hadn’t had a sighting myself. Lucky for my first hour, we were treated to five-minute mouse interlude featuring rodents frolicking on the wall above the blackboard just after the bell.

It was nothing less than terrifying, and I was forced to restrain students who ran at the mice wielding textbooks and pencil cases. I made an emergency call to the custodian, who promptly deployed the traps and reassured me that this will make the mouse threat diminish.

Let’s hope.

6 comments:

LH said...

Capital G for GROSS. they're running around in broad daylight. that means you have so many mice, you have mice in numbers you do not want to contemplate. That's hideous. Maybe they're getting into your candy stash?

KC said...

oh GOD, lee!!!!!

"numbers i don't want to comtemplate"????

they tell me it's been this way for years. i've heard rumors of rats. and i'm right across from an open construction door. like, it just stays open to the outside all day and night. so...

Undomestic said...

I had one die in my room one year. There was this horrific odor in my room for a few days, but we could never find the source of it. When I was "cleaning house" at the end of the year, I found the little furry creature curled up under a cabinet, nestled on a poster of Mother Theresa. What a stink he caused!

jm said...

kc - I'm terrfied for you. I absolutely HATE mice and RATS scare me more than Bodypump class at the Y!

I wonder which is worse, a dead mouse that stinks up a room or a live mouse?

May The Force be with you.

LH said...

the question probably should be...which is worse, one dead stinky mouse, or dozens and dozens, scores and scores, of live mice running rampant in the walls?

jdoc said...

Wow. Good luck. I say let the kids hit them with the textbooks and stab them with the pencils.