everybody hates peace signs...

well, this blawg is happening live and on location, from my classroom.  that's right; i am blawging any- and everywhere.  as it turns out, we had a field trip today for the fourth graders.  out of a possible eighty-seven students, sixty-seven went.  one might ask why.  one would be asking a great question.  field trips are extracurricular activities, and as such are not required.  basically, these damn kids don't have to go on a field trip because it's not a mandatory thing.

well, a certain student, who will be given the extraordinary name "anpanman" (to be explained in a bit), was one of the students who was not allowed to go.  and why not?  let's make a list, and check it twice:

• he does not follow the rules
• he does not pay attention in class
• he does not pay attention in the hall
• he does not listen to instructions
• he does not do his homework
• he does not do his schoolwork
• he does not participate in class
• he does not tell the truth
• he does not follow directions
• he does not get along with other students
• he does not get along with other teachers
• he does not ever smile
• he does not sit in his seat correctly
• he does not know how to be quiet
• he does not keep his hands, feet, or objects to himself
• he does not know how to mind grown folks
• he does not know how to answer questions (which is a major pet peeve of mine)
• he does not show respect to anyone in the school
• he does not complete any assignments he is given

the damn list just goes on and on.  notice, though, that in every instance there were the words "he does not."  that's probably the theme song of his life..."he does not."  this lazy n*gga just does not do anything.  the reason, meanwhile, i gave him the name "anpanman" is because he bears a striking resemblance to a certain japanese anime character, named anpanman...

minus the smile, of course, because the student just does not smile...

harvey, a fellow colleague and teammate of mine, once asked him why he never smiles, to which he replied: "this just how i look."  apparently, cece and trip, the reading and writing teachers (respectively) aren't doing their grammatical jobs.  harvey and i have to do everything around here.

so, anyway, it is decided that he will not go.  the main villain in this blawg is surprisingly not anpanman, but his raggedy, nasty, ignorant, trifling, shiftless, self-indulgent, instigating, hypocritical, two-faced, bald-headed, stoopid, stereotypical, no sense having, inexcusable, sadistic, bullying, sardonically challenged, hellish, evil, foolish, buffoonish, inconceivable, unyielding, yet churchgoing mother.

oh yes, the mama.  meeting her was probably the biggest mistake i've made this year to date.  she's just awful.  i don't think that there are enough words in the english language to describe her.  the ones i used really don't do her justice the way she needs.  i'll call her..."etta."  etta has been the root of all the evil drama that has gone down at this damn school since before i started working here.  she is the kind of person who likes to always have her way, and then go over your head and run downtown to the administration building when things don't end up the way she thinks they should.  when i first met her i was like that commercial...this bitch is actually an alive entity.

so this heifer comes up to my door in her usual bullying fashion and asks why her son cannot attend the field trip.  i told her that his behavior was not, and has not been good, he doesn't do his work, he doesn't pay attention...i basically ran down the list with her.  i concluded by telling her that we, the THE fourth grade team, did not think that all of that deserved to be rewarded with a field trip.  she replied with a simple "okay" and took off towards the office, where the principal was.  that's how this jackarse is.  she likes to go over your head until she gets her way.  that makes her a bully...but i thought we were all grownups...

our principal called the four of us teachers into his office and told us that she explicitly told him (and this is verbatim): "he's going on that field trip."

you have got to be f*cking kidding me.  we ran down a whole list of problems that this squishy faced n*gga has in school, but he's going on the field trip?  i was supposed to be going, but i decided that very moment that i would not.  cece had to go in my place today because had i seen either of them i would have lost my damn job...or what's left of it.

so we did a conference call...to the dad, who seemed generally disinterested in anything we had to say.  he said that he hadn't heard anything from his wife.  we were like, "n*gga, that's a communication issue between you and that bitch of yours; that has nothing to do with us."  we finally got hold of this stoopid ho', and she said that she had problems with us...ALL of us teachers, because nobody ever tells her when her son is doing anything wrong.  she said that she brings him to school every day, and gives us multiple opportunities to speak with her, yet we never do.  so we went around the speakerphone and took turns trying to talk to her.

trip went first...and should never have gone.  i usually keep it together, but i really wanted to hang the phone up...

trip: well, what i have to say is...

etta: that don't make no sense to me.

trip: i'm trying to say...

etta: you need to tell me something else.

trip: well, your son doesn't...

etta: you don't make no sense.

trip: can i speak my piece now?

etta: no, we ain't talkin' 'bout no peace sign.  we're talkin' 'bout my child.

trip: well i keep trying to speak, but you keep interrupting me.

etta: we ain't gon' get nowhere with you being sarcastic.

and so went the conversation.  she sounded like she was going to break into a verse of "dem ol' cotton fields back yonder" and move back to "gone with the wind."  i mean this monkey was out of control.  we all told her (with the exception of harvey, who i think would really have jumped through the phone and choked the sh*t out of her) more or less the same things about her child, and she was in denial the entire time.  and although she was in denial, she insisted that her child is not a bad child, but she acknowledges that he can do things every now and then.  THEN (and this is the part that took me out of the game), she said that if he's acting up then she can understand that, and she's not going to reward any bad behavior of his, but he's going to be absent from school because he's going on the field trip.

take a minute to process that particular group of words strung together in that particular order...

whatever this queen of the damned is on, put me some in a doggy bag and leave me to the wolves.  she wants to be communicated with?  i will never speak with her again, unless she really wants me to speak my mind, which i will.  i will only communicate with her in writing.  she doesn't deserve my voice time.  i've got better things to do, like learning to write larger, because the beauty pageant reject scrutinized my handwriting, saying that she needed a magnifying glass to read it.  next time i will write even smaller, microscopic even.

congratulations, etta, you have earned a spot on my sh*t list.

(time lapse)

PS: but wait...there's more.  i just came from lurnch with the rest of my THE fourth grade team and cece was telling me that she called this idiot last night to discuss some of the things that she said.  i hda to hurry off so i couldn't fit everything in that blawg, and i probably won't be able to get it all in now either.

cece was about to tell her something, but she prefaced it with "and i think i speak for the whole fourth grade team."  etta thought she was referring to something else, which was of course, wrong.  so she blurted out with a triumphant and somewhat maniacal "NO...NO MA'AM...UH UH...NO."  cece said she had to call her last night to tell her that that bothered her...only to find out that my name came up.

among the issues that this trifling bitch has with me, here are the top three:

1. i cursed anpanman out.
2. i made him stand up without a chair for three days straight.
3. i cannot look her in the face when she speaks to me.

i've got about seven minutes to issue my statements before my break is over...

1. i used the word "damn."  this i will admit.  i will also say that the word was not directed toward any child.  i used it in the situation that they all failed a test i gave.  i asked them if they thought i was disappointed.  they said yes, i said "damn right."  etta is under her ignorant son's spell.  she told me that day that he told her i said words such as "bullsh*t," "motherf*cker," and the like.  those are strong words for me.  i only save those for dire emergencies.  he lied on me, that moon faced chump.
2. again, false.  i went through a "push in your chair when you get up" phase and told them that if they didn't, they would lose their chair for a little while, that little while being between five and ten minutes.  it kept happening, so i said they would lose it for a little while for a week, meaning five to ten minutes a day for a week.  he lied on me, that dumb arse chump.
3. the word "cannot" is inaccurate.  the best word to use in this situation is "won't"...maybe "don't."  i do not make a habit out of showing respect to those who cannot even throw some of it back.  i told my teammates: "the ancient greeks did not look medusa straight in the eyes, either.  those who did...still statues to this very day."  that's the only way i'll say it...for now.

so there is my side.  keep in mind that these things happened months ago, so she is steadily holding fast to the past, which is preventing her from moving towards the future.  strangely enough, the one for whom i really pity is anpanman himself, not only because he has to be raised by this wolf, but because he is getting caught in the middle of this buffoonery.  yes, he is the source and the catalyst of most of it, but at the end of the day, this is a ten year old child.  what the hell does he know?

i'm gonna get that sucka, dirty mutha --- don't you say that...

-w

everybody hates kandi (part i)...

this won't be too long because i am more than ready to lay it down for the night.  i promised, though, that i would dedicate a blawg just for this girl/woman/bitch/lady because she's pretty much ride or die when it comes to being a dedicated reader of my work.  it's great to know someone who's as sarcastic, yet sophisticated, as i am.  that person, of course, is none other than...

are you ready?

wait for it...

drumroll...

pause for dramatic effect...play this video as you read the blawg.  for some reason this just popped up in my head as i was thinking about what to write.

so, if you don't know, kandi is a former coworker of mine from the old school.  we met...not during my first year at the old school, but my third year.  i had known of her from the beginning, but it wasn't really until we starting teaching on the same team that i got to actually know her...and that was the start of something special...

as it turned out, we both started working at the old school the same year.  she had been a middle school teacher (and why the hell would anybody ever want to do that...voluntarily?) before, and decided that she wanted a change of pace.  apparently, and this is how it was told to me, she was good friends with our principal at the time, and that's how she got a position at the old school.  at first, i chalked it up to some sort of greek nepotism or something, because i had always assumed that they were in the same n*gga sorority.  it was later consolation to find out that they were not.

whenever i think about black fraternities and sororities, this is the first clip that comes to my mind.  back in the day i wanted to join one of those things.  i think some days i still do, and the day may come when i actually work up enough courage (and money...these sh*ts cost a lot of money) to go and do it.  it's on my bucket list, but only until i turn forty-two or so, then it'll just look quite sad.  there are a lot of reasons i wanted to join one.  if you're not familiar with the african-american culture (i'm not really caught up on it myself, but i do the best i can), when one joins a fraternity or sorority it's pretty much for life.  white ones only keep you through the time you walk across that stage.  black ones keep you even after you've passed on to the next life.  from what i heard, depending on which one you join, you're reborn as something different...oh well, that's for another time.

meanwhile, so i think that kandi got ushered into the old school.  she was doing forth grade reading at the time (which isn't ironic at all, especially when i try to add the fact that i teach forth grade now) and was as pregnant as an elephant.  her husband really gave it to her good.  yadda yadda yadda...we ended up on the second grade team.

she texted me the other night and said that the best time she had at the old school was when the second grade team consisted of her, jab, big mama, and me.  we didn't get much teaching done, but it was always a good laugh.  jab was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down the hall, and big mama had the largest room a school has ever had.  it was approximately the size of one third of a football field...regulation of course.  kandi and i shared these little twin rooms that were just around the corner from big mama.  if big mama's room was the size of a hummer, ours were the size of the little cap that you have to unscrew to put air in the hummer.  i'm not joking; they were that small.

the fondest memory i have of kandi (as if she's passed on to a better life) is this: every day at around two thirty or so, we would start getting the students ready to go.  that time, by the way, got earlier and earlier as the year went on...  because our rooms were right next to each other, i could always hear her yelling.  a typical rant in her class might be something like this:

kandi: Y'ALL ARE SEVEN AND EIGHT...NOT TWO...
(flash)
kandi: I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONE IN CHARGE...
(flash)
kandi: THAT'S A BOLD FACED, NAPPY HEADED, RAGGEDY, UGLY LIE...
(flash)

but the funniest thing was that in getting them ready to go, her kids would literally go crazy.  honestly, they would stop being semi-smart children and let go of all the idiocy that they had been holding back for the past seven hours...

kandi: alright, y'all, it's time to begin starting to prepare to get ready to go.  make sure you have your...

students:

oh it was awful, yet entertaining at the same time.  oh kandi...why did you have to get pregnant again, forcing me to go it alone for so many months without your hilarious yelling.  when jennifer joined our team, she yelled, but it wasn't the same...it just wasn't the same...

i gotta go to bed now because i can't think clearly, but stay tuned for a part two to this...all this reminiscing got me reliving these days again.  i really don't have to tell you, but that's pretty much what reminiscing is anyway.  if anyone has any hilarious kandi stories, let me know so i can include them in the next kandi blawg...

wasn't the theme song great?

-w

everybody hates playing chicken...

and i guess this applies to all walks of life.  i'm playing chicken at work with those damn kids.  i'm playing chicken every time i get in the damn car.  i'm playing chicken on the damn volleyball court.  i'm playing chicken when i write a check or slish my credit cards.  i'm playing chicken when i go to the store hungry (which i don't recommend for anybody in particular...it can be quite overwhelming on the wallet).  chicken everywhere...so where to start now?

well, i guess the first thing i need to mention is that i'm apparently being pirated.  i know i'm going to risk plugging this idiot's ignorance, but my little brother (who's bigger than me, yet weaker) has decided to follow in his older and wiser brother's footsteps and create a blawg of his own.  he calls it a "blog," which doesn't sound right to me.  i've read it, and trust me when i tell you that you're better off here.  there have been plenty of successful spin-offs over the years:

• good times was a spin-off of maude, which itself was a spin-off of all in the family.
• the jeffersons was a spin-off of all in the family as well.
• a different world was a spin-off of the cosby show.
• next friday was a spin-off of friday.
• ignition (remix) was a spin-off of ignition.
• baseball was a spin-off of volleyball.

okay, maybe that last one was a stretch.  the point is that the list just goes on and on.  there have been many more good spin-offs, but i just can't think of them at this very moment.  and why not?  because these damn kids are driving me crazy.  if you have ever seen seinfeld...

it's the same thing.  i had an absolutely awful day at school today, which is...not rare.  today, though, proved to be one of those days.  have you ever had a day where you can say that you have really really earned your salary?  yeah, that was me.

the way we, the "THE fourth grade team", have done it, we've divided the students into groups that will allow us to better cater to their needs.  notice i didn't use the word "whims," because we all know that it is NOT in my nature to cater to the whims of children.  it bothers me when i see all these damn parents just doing everything they can think of to pacify a child.  who the hell is the grown up?

i was in wal-mart today picking up a few things and i kid you not, a child somewhere in the building cried the entire time i was in there.  it was at least fifteen minutes.  i only needed to get a few things, remember. this little boy literally cried without stopping, except to take breaths.  i followed the sound and eventually caught up to them at the counter.  my first thought before finding him was, "i bet he's not black."  and sure enough, it was a little mexican...i'm sorry...a little hispanic boy.  mama had struggle written all over her forehead.  she was trying to offer him candy and soda and this and that.  i told the girl who was ringing me up that i would have beat the tears out of him after that first sign of cry.

and...a few years ago, i was in another wal-mart (not the same one, it was a ghetto wal-mart near my old school) and heard this boy crying.  when i went to see what was going on (because apparently i just have to know what's going on...i'd make an awful person in a horror movie because i do what the white people do; i go to see what's happening when i know i need to get the hell away to a well lit area) this boy was laid out on the floor in the middle of the freezer section.  mama looked around, obviously embarrassed...as she should have been...and didn't know what the hell to do.  as it turned out, this was a child who attended my school, so i knew who he was.  i walked up to him, bent down very nicely, and told that boy, "get up off this floor and stop all that crying...right now.  i'm not playing with you, boy."  he got up off that floor and stopped all that crying...right then.  mama was looking at me crazy.  i could only look at her with that same expression.  i imagine we looked like something out of a mirror.  bitch, control your child.  why am i doing your job...and not claiming that little nino on my income tax?

i digress...at the wal-mart today i wanted so desperately to say something to that boy, but i was in a hurry.  i had to get to the comic book shop before heading to church.  i'd quite like to mention church because i've inadvertently become a heathen, but that's going to have to wait until i fall back into good graces, which shouldn't take long.  i've also become a comic book geek; i'm addicted to the whole green lantern series, specifically the blue lantern.  but i think i blawged about that before...yes, i just checked.

the title of this one should have been "everybody hates digressing...", which will make a good title for a future blawg, because that's all i seem to be doing.  at this rate, i won't ever finish one complete thought, so let me try and reorganize this jumble.  i guess this is what happens when i don't blawg for weeks and months at a time.

so...the fourth grade students are split into groups based on their ability to do work satisfactorily.  there are four groups...i have to leave it at that.  harvey, one of the team members and the second oldest, frequently refers to some of them as "boxes of rocks."  it sounds better if you hear him say it.  harvey's hilarious because he's obviously getting more and more annoyed with the kids.  he has his own language that he uses, that could be likened to something out of pootie tang perhaps.  his word of choice recently is "bull shiggety."  the hilarious thing is that every time he says it, it seems to come closer and closer to being the actual word...

anyway, harvey and i had group four today, which we found out is comprised of ninety-eight percent rubble, with a two percent margin of error.  together they are awful.  they are easily the most hated group of all.  they do all the things you ask them not to do...and here's the kicker...willingly.  it's out of spite.  they are (expletive deleted) who deserve to (expletive deleted) all the way to (expletive deleted).  long story short, i fussed at them for so long that it was time to go home and i was not even halfway done saying everything that i wanted to say.  the one boy who stood to receive some sort of education, called "craig," cried because he wanted to be taught something and wanted nothing more than to get out of that group.  being the malevolent...i mean...benevolent person that i am, i saved his arse.  he's probably still turning cartwheels of joy.  if i had a heart, it would probably be full.  needless to say, i will be getting back at group four.  i've already told them: "it might not be tomorrow.  it might not be next week.  it might not be next month.  but i will get you back for this."  i'm really a nice person.  i promise...

going back to something i started earlier...i was on my way to a volleyball game last night.  i was walking to my car and these two white girls (yes, i made a point to mention that they are white) were hogging the entire sidewalk, jogging side by side with headphones.  this is the worst kind of chicken.  who's going to let up?  you never know.  it's always me, though.  i hate when people think that they are royalty and expect me to move out of their way.  i always end up doing it, too.  last night, though, i decided (for some reason) that enough was enough...kind of.  

i moved to the curb and walked it like a balance beam as those two bitches jogged by.  as we were all side by side, my foot slipped and i started to go down.  well, i was not about to twist my ankle behind some foolishness like that, so i grabbed the nearest thing i could get my hands on, which was one of the girls, and we both went down.  we softened each other's fall, but they were caught off guard, as was i.  i mean, this just never happens.  she screamed while the other girl jumped back like i had cooties.

bitch #1: oh my god!  are you okay?

bitch #2: yeah, i think so.  are you?

bitch #1: yeah.

me: well, she didn't fall.  i almost twisted my ankle trying to move out of y'all's way.

i believe i was in the right.  sidewalks have an assumed line in the middle that divides them into coming and going lanes.  it's just like a street, but on the side...and made for walking.  hence, the name.  i know one thing; there are two people in this world who will line up and let others use their god given right to walk on a damn sidewalk.

last thing and then i'm taking my arse to bed.  for some reason, there has been some kind of "tension" between my sister luby and me.  tension is the best word i can think of right now, although i'm sure the actual word is much more insidious.  take a few minutes and click back to the blawg about the red lobster incident.  yes, the one where my arm suffered a near fatal blow.  well...and i don't know why...we ended up going back to red lobster a few days ago.  it was her, trip, me, and a student with her brother and mother.  it was...awkward...because i think i went mostly because the student asked me to go.  damn, i'm going soft.

we sat a a round table, which is a clue that i'm getting back into good graces because i think i sat opposite luby.  she couldn't "go go gadget pincers" without getting somebody else first.  the dinner itself wasn't bad.  there was an extremely awkward moment where everybody else, except the student's brother, got up to go to the restroom.  i really can't describe those few minutes, but thank goodness for cell phones an angry birds.  the night ended up doable, although there was a time when the issue came up that we're not friends.

now, i'm the kind of person who will say it to your face before saying it behind your back.  that's just me.  remember this...

she asked (i guess in a joking manner) if i would be okay with her sitting next to me.  i said something that had the same power as "hells no."  you only add that "s" when you can't say what you really need to say because there are kids around.  besides, i didn't even say "hells" because there were children around.  basically, i let it be known that i was not a happy camper, which is unlike me because i'm such a bubbly person all around, who just wants to have fun.  i think...i think...that she thought that up to that point i was just kidding about this whole thing.

if you're still confused, she pinched the sh*t out of my arm a few weeks ago at a red lobster because she asked me what i thought about her and i told her.  was i wrong?  here's my side of the argument...

i'm a very straightforward person who will tell you what's on my mind about you or anybody else at any given time.  i have grown to learn that life just works better that way.  get things out from the jump, and no problems will be had.  she's known this about me since we met months ago.  and on top of this, i did not even say anything that i thought was offensive...consider this...

volleyball friend: hey wesley, do you need an extra player for your team for the tournament?

me: yeah, but you move too slowly.  you're as slow as a turtle.  you're tall, but you ain't got no speed.

student: can you hold this folder for me while i go to the bathroom?

me: do you think i have the word "slave" written across my forehead?  i'm just supposed to stop whatever i'm doing just to hold your folder, like that's the most important thing for me to do right now...(that one went on and on for a while)

bitch #1: are you okay?

me: i almost twisted my ankle trying to move out of y'all's way.

those are all true conversations i've had with different people, by the way.  those are much stronger than what i said to luby that fateful night at the red lobster.  oh yeah, when she asked me what i thought about her, i said that i thought she's a little self-indulgent.  well, i do.  and this is my muthaf*ckin' blawg, so i'm going to put it out there.  I THINK SHE IS A LITTLE SELF-INDULGENT.  and if i get e-pinched, then all bets will be off.

basically, why get upset all of a sudden about something i'm quite sure i've been saying for a while?  if i had to pinpoint it, i would label this a classic case of showing out in front of company because this happened in front of trip's cousin, prima.  i believe that had there been no company there, this part of the blawg would not have happened.  there, i wrote it.  am i particularly happy about this?  not really.  we all know that i can hold a grudge for life if necessary, though i'd rather not.  forgive, i do plenty; i never forget.  it's hard for me to let go of the past.  yet, i would like to move past this one.  i couldn't give a reason why, though.  i mean, trip, luby, and i go all the way back...to five months ago.  this might be one of those bonding experiences later on down the line, but for now, no.

trip said that i was being too hard, but he changed his tune after i punched him in the mouth.  i was aiming for his chest, but his mouth is so damn big i guess i couldn't avoid it.  meanwhile, i propose that we all go somewhere to eat, like NOT the red lobster, and talk this one out...because a little birdie told me that i could possibly be put off for the wrong reason.  good god, these pretzels are making me thirsty.

shout out to kandi...the next blawg is about her, with her crazy tail.

-w