Fall Round Up

I’m back.

If you are wondering where I have been since August – let me assure you, I have been conquering the world.  Ok, maybe not.  But I have gained a few pounds and learned a thing or two. 

The children have returned to school.  This means I am trying to strike that careful balance working Moms know about - - the “please don’t ask me for any of my time dear teachers because I have shit to do” versus “please understand that I actually notice when my kid is not doing well and I will send you an email asking about it and I will expect a prompt and appropriately-toned response . . . but don’t be mad when I fail to brown 3 pounds of ground beef for the classroom stew.”

It’s a careful parent-teacher balance.  They need to know I care, but understand that I do not care enough to hover in their classroom and ask if anything needs to be copied.  And then they need to feel the subtle protective vibe I am sending:  

If you hurt my kid, I will cut you.

I learned that last part from Peggy.  Peggy didn’t cut up construction paper or sell ice cream cones at lunch.  What Peggy did was inject herself into crises and ensure that any resolution included a mutual agreement that everyone would leave her kid alone.

6^th grade was particularly rough.  My Maggie has entered 6^th grade this year, and it seems to be going  . . . ok.  For example, when she is dropped off at her middle school, she doesn’t see last night’s bar patrons slumping through the doors of the popular establishment across the street – aptly named Stone Castle. 

Maggie has not mentioned any classmates spraying hairspray on the floor and lighting the hairspray sheen with a cigarette lighter.  As far as I know, none of her teachers go by the nickname “Dead Eye” Duncan.  In fact, her teachers don’t seem all that creepy.

She hasn’t even mentioned PE.  6^th grade PE was the most awful thing that ever happened to 12 year old Ashby.  First, the teacher was this “lady” that spent her off hours taking up tickets at the local wrestling matches on Saturday night.  She had kind of droopy boobies and she tried to teach aerobics to us.  (Those droopy boobies were not well secured). 

We also had to play basketball, which was just unacceptable to me.  Why anyone would want to simultaneously move their feet and hands with a dirty orange stray ball was beyond me. 

But the worst part was we had to “DRESS OUT.” 

Dressing out meant that in the morning you put a change of clothes in a Limited bag (it had to be a Limited bag), you took that bag into a very old locker room that had SHOWERS in it.  You figured out a way to change your shirt into your “workout” shirt without anyone seeing your AA bralet.  You laced up your Reeboks (which were OK in 6^th grade, but in 7^th grade I was told I was wearing Fagboks).

You did this while trying to avoid eye contact with the bullies.  At least that is what the smart kids did.  The smart kids made themselves invisible. 

This kid did not.  If a bully (there were a few of them) was staring at me, I’d say “What do you think you’re looking at?”  For some reason when I said stuff like that all my friends would scatter.  And I’d be left staring a very large 6^th grade girl in the face and trying to figure out what I had done wrong.  One way to ease the tension was to give the bully a quarter or let her borrow my hairbrush or my deodorant.  Sometimes though, there was no real solution.  Like the time the bully said she thought she heard me mention her mother’s name.  I said “What are you talking about, how the hell should I know your mother’s name!?”  She said she heard me say her mom’s name and it was Vicki.  I said “I have never even said the name Vicki in my whole life!!”

And she punched me.  Because I said her Mom’s name.  (It was Vicki).

So Peggy is a praying woman, and she likes to pray at the right time of day.  Even today, if I have a big hearing, she will pray for me during the time of my hearing (What time is that hearing Ashby?  I will pray for you then).  That night I asked Peggy to pray for me at 10:00 AM, because that was when I had PE and Vicki’s daughter was going to kick my ass.  When I told her I needed her prayers, instead of agreeing like she always does, she became instantly angry.  And apparently drove up to that Middle School to unleash some Peggy terror.

Because the next day, I was assigned a new duty in PE.   Instead of dressing in the locker room with the bully-whose-Mom’s-name-is-Vicki, I was assigned the job of watching my classmates leave the locker room and giving them a grade demerit if they had not properly dressed out in “workout clothes.”  This meant I had to ensure these 12 year olds had put on tennis shoes and changed out of their jeans.  Only when this was finished did I change into my workout clothes, alone, in that creepy 1960’s locker room with SHOWERS.

Guess who never changed into proper attire and tried to get away with wearing jeans during aerobics?  You guessed it, Vicki’s daughter. 

We made a quickly negotiated deal.  I like my deals quick and dirty still today:

No demerits for Vicki’s daughter.  Ever. 

No ass kicking for Peggy’s daughter.  Ever.