DeadpanAnn (old blogger version)

Yesterday may have been the greatest clusterfuck of all time. We were scheduled for the last day of testing, and it was the math test. For you non-teachers, the distribution of testing materials is a pain, but on math day it's even worse. This is because all testing materials are "secure," and each teacher has to stand in the little vault and count each individual item and sign for them. On math day it's worse because there are more items: calculators, rulers, formula charts, etc. (Why do they get to use all that stuff, anyway!?) So it took a while for all 40+ teachers to get their materials checked out and back to the rooms.

It was getting very close to time to start. I had all my students seated where I wanted them, had taken up all their personal belongings, had threatened their lives if they didn't hand over their cell phones, and had even handed out the pencils. I was just waiting for the green light to start testing. The intercom clicked, and we all waited to hear the go ahead. Instead, we heard, "Attention students and teachers. This announcement is very important, so please listen closely. We have just received word from the central office in Jackson that we will not be allowed to test today due to the weather that is on its way here. Testing is postponed until tomorrow. Please gather your testing materials and come check them back in."

Arrrrrrrrrrgghhhhhhh.

Checking test materials back in is the exact same as checking them out. You have to count everything. So basically, the proctors, who are made up of volunteers in the community who generally have NO experience in dealing with students, were left alone in the classes with the kids for 15-30 minutes while the teachers went to check the stuff back in. I was back to my room in 20 minutes, but I wasn't worried about my proctor. She subs all the time and can handle them as well as any teacher. Still, I hear all hell broke loose in one or two rooms. What did they expect? It really could have been worse.

Now with the test postponed until tomorrow (today) the kids were upset because they had been promised a May Day today. It's postponed until next week, which should be better for them since it might rain again today, but you can't tell a 14 year old anything. Also, the teachers were all planning to spend 1st through 4th periods testing. So now every teacher is trying to pull something together at the last minute.

I decided we'd have Mercy Day. This means that all the people who are failing either for this term or for the year (and there are a lot of them) would have a chance to complete some work for major extra points. It was worth 120 free daily points PLUS a test grade of up to 100. They had to do six English assignments, but they weren't that hard. Most of the kids finished it in the two hours they were with me. Well, except for the class that spent an hour on the floor during the TORNADO WARNING.

Yeah. My 1st period class came in at 8:30. We went through the hurrah of the cancelled test. Second period was late getting started, but it didn't matter because all mine come back to me for 2nd period too. Mere seconds into 2nd period, we're told to line up on the floors against the wall because there is a tornado warning.

The kids don't take this seriously enough. They don't understand that a warning means a tornado has been spotted in the area. Everything is a damn joke to them. I had to scream at the top of my lungs to get them to fcking MOVE. They were actually arguing with me and refusing to get on the damn ground! Unreal. Then they wouldn't really get in the right position, which I'm thinking they MUST have been taught from kindergarten on, and they spent the entire time bitching about having to be in the floor. There are worse things in life, people. I couldn't believe what an ordeal it was to be in a tornado warning with that bunch, and we were down there for over an hour.

This is my hell. Yes, if I died and went to hell, it would be me with that particular group of kids in a tornado warning for eternity.

Once the weather threat had passed, they moved on the 3rd period, which is my planning period. There were only 30 minutes left of 3rd period, but at least I got some kind of break. It's the first time this week I've actually had a planning period, because testing usually goes through 4th, and instead of trying to be fair and have the kids return to a different class each day, they have been sending them straight to 4th period after testing.

The rest of the day dragged on. I showed a video in my 6th and 7th periods. Today I think they will have Mercy Day, but fewer of them need it, so I'm not sure how it's gonna go.

When the last kid finally dragged out of my class at 4:00, I was thinking the day was over. I had completely forgotten about my nephew's high school graduation. Tim had to work, so I had to go alone to make sure our little corner of the family was represented. They live about 50 miles from here, so I had zero time to relax after work. I freshened up, changed clothes, and hit the road. Then I spent 90 minutes in a HOT gym just waiting for the thing to start. That's how early you have to be to a graduation in a small town, because everyone goes whether they have family graduating or not. The thing just dragged on, but we got the boy graduated, then there was the family get-together/party afterwards. I was the first person to leave, and I was still there until 10:00. It was close to 11:00 when I finally made it home.

Even when I got here, it seemed like there was no chance to sit down for an hour or so. Things just had to be done, and they were urgent. For a fleeting moment I thought It won't stop-- where does this day END? And then it occured to me that this is a drop in the bucket compared to what must be in store. I guess I'd better get used to it.

Funny. I had a similar thought in the ER Wednesday night when they were jabbing tubes into my various holes.

Labels: family, Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', it's my pity party and I'll bitch if I want to, professional screw-ups, teacher life

My alarm wasn't set to go off until 6:00 today. I have a doctor's appointment at 7:50, and that would be plenty of time for me. Besides, after weekends (especially weekends that Tim has been home) I usually need an extra half hour or so to sleep on Monday. So imagine my disgust when I woke up at 3:45 a.m. I'm not sure whether I woke up because I had to pee, or if I woke up because Pookie was throwing a shit fit, but the point is that I woke up.

I tried to go back to sleep, but the little devil was demanding my attention, so I got up and fed him. After he ate he came back to the bed and continued to meow, then he jumped up here with me and started moving around the bed. He would find a place to curl up, and then he would start his loud paw sucking routine, then get up and move to another part of the bed and start the process over. I'm used to the paw sucking, as sick as it is, but when it is interspersed with meowing fits and moving around, it becomes too much. It really became too much when he decided that he needed to set up camp on top of me. I sorta rolled him off me, and then he decided he needed to be on my pillow. I finally lost it and screamed and swatted at him, and he went to the floor for a while and he got quiet. So I've found the way to shut him up-- scream and swat. (I should've known. It works well with the students.)

Unfortunately, perhaps because of the mattress I'm sleeping on, I couldn't fall back asleep. Lately I have been waking up with back pain. It's like I've slept with a softball pressing into the very center of my back, right between the shoulder blades, and it hurts to turn my head or move my arms. No position relieves it. The only remedy is to go get in the other bed with Tim, but then he suffers because I apparently saw logs like no other woman in the history of womankind.

Within five minutes of running Pookie out of the bed, my nose was completely clogged so that I couldn't breathe. Great. That's what happens when he tries to sleep on my pillow. Bastard. I laid there hating him for some time, tossed and turned and got a new pillow case, and then I finally fell back asleep after about an hour of lying in bed awake. An hour later, at 5:20, he was at it again with the meowing and the moving around on the bed. I got up and grabbed him and carried him to the door and as soon as I got it open, I tossed his ass out. And in came Millay, the multi colored devil. The multi colored devil who shat in our closet. Did I not blog about that? Well she did shit in the closet of the empty bedroom, and she pissed too, multiple times, when there was a perfectly good litter box available for her shitting pleasure.

Her presence outside the door is no doubt what had Pookie in crazy mode all night. He loathes her. And I have taken Pookie's side now that she crossed the line and took a shit in the closet for no good reason other than she wanted to be unpleasant. She's no longer allowed inside at all, so I grabbed her and threw her out right on top of Pookie. There. BOTH are banished!

Of course there was no point in going back to bed considering that it was 5:30 by that time, so here I am, blogging about cats at 5:45 in the morning. I love little Pookie when he acts right, but I could wring his furry little neck on mornings like these. Damn him, waking me up at 3:45! Let him try that shit when I've got a newborn baby in the house. I bet it doesn't take me nearly as long to get up and throw his ass outside.

Moving on to non-cat blogging. (Hey it's still only 6:04. I've got time to tell you about ALL the non exciting things happening in my life.)

We bought a bedroom suite yesterday. First we went back to Ashley's, which was the cheaper of the two places. My dad used to work in a furniture factory (something I didn't know until I called him yesterday for advice) and he gave us a few pointers on things to look for in regards to signs of well made stuff, so we returned feeling like we had some information.

The stuff at Ashley's just flat out didn't pass the test, but more importantly, the sales people there don't know how to act. As soon as we walked in the door, a saleslady jumped on us and didn't let go. She was oh so very annoying. Even though we walked away from her several times and told her we would come find her if we had any questions, she didn't back off the whole time we were in there. She was like a fly in my ear. I know these folks work on commission and are hungry for sales, but there is a right way and a wrong way to approach potential customers. She did it the wrong way. Nothing will put a bad taste in my mouth quicker than a pushy sales person. Tim is completely intolerant of them. He won't deal with them on any level. I tried to be polite to the lady, but after half an hour of being hounded and having her fail to pick up on the fact that we wanted to talk alone, Tim got frustrated and walked out of the store.

We drove around looking for another furniture store, but went back to Haverty's again. We wanted that mattress for sure, and we thought we would look around at their furniture a while since we'd had our fill of Ashley's. After walking around the store once, we found the clearance room in the back. As soon as we walked in, Tim spied the exact same mattress as the one we had already mentally committed to, except this one was marked down from $1,500 to $1,100. It had a quarter-sized smudge of dirt on top of it, and the original buyer had rejected it for that reason. We told them to put a "sold" sign on it.

I think my feelings can best be expressed by the following video.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XswTLOejeg

We settled on a bedroom suite too. We paid for it, but I think we got some good stuff. It'll be here Saturday, along with the mattress set. I can't wait. Maybe the softball between my shoulder blades will disappear after I get a new mattress.

After we bought the stuff at Haverty's, Tim said he wanted to call the lady at Ashley's back and tell her she missed out on a $4,000 sale because she didn't know how to take a hint. I told him not to do that. After all, it would be much more mature to blog about her and use her real name.

Better luck next time, Donna.

Labels: Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', it's not a cat blog

Yesterday was Career Day at school. Each class had 4 pairs of speakers come through and talk to the kids about their jobs. Most of them were extremely good. The kids behaved, asked appropriate questions, and were mostly polite. A few needed to have the fear of God put in them as a reminder, but fortunately I have gotten better at doing that without saying a word.

Our class had three people with government jobs come through-- two had to do with natural resource conservation. I thought it was odd that they'd send us 2 very similar jobs. We also had some folks from the Boy Scouts, and while they didn't talk much about their job, their "stay in school and respect your teachers" speech was the most powerful one I've ever heard, and the kids listened. Kudos to the Boy Scouts. Methinks my Little Wendol may have to join their ranks when he's old enough.

Another class got to hear a lady from the health department who goes around and gives talks about abstinence, std's, etc. I know this because once the speakers were gone and we went back to the regular schedule, I had some of the kids from that group in my later classes and they couldn't stop talking about it. One student in 4th period told me that the lady had said that if you perform oral sex on a guy and...um...swallow that you could still get pregnant because there's a chance that it could still get to the right part of your body. I asked the girl if she had misunderstood. Maybe the speaker was telling her she could get a disease from that. No, she insisted, you can get pregnant from that.

Umkay. Considering that they know I'm pregnant, I was afraid of how personal that conversation could have become had I pursued it, so I still chalked it up to a misunderstanding-- or maybe the kid just wanted to say something disgusting to get a reaction out of me. Who knows.

Enter 6th period. In the last 5 minutes of class, once all our English ducks were in a row, I asked the kids to tell me who their favorite speakers were and why. Another student told me about the sex speech. She told me the same thing the other kid had said about oral sex. You can get pregnant, she insisted.

Now, the first kid who reported this newfound ignorance was an 8th grader, and the second one was a 7th grader. That means they heard the same speaker at different times. (The speakers rotated between classrooms every 20 minutes.) That means the woman MUST have said that-- and more than once!

I'm all for educating kids on the facts about sex. They need to know. We need to be frank with them, in my humble opinion, because if we choose not to educate them, someone else will. But give them facts, not lies. Bullshitting them on that stuff to scare them is the worst thing you could do, as evidenced by the fact that they are already trotting around trying to confirm the information with other adults. What do you think the other adults are going to say when they ask them about this? They're going to tell them it's shit! I did! They didn't believe me, but I was the first one they asked about it. By the time they get to adult number 3, they'll see the light. And then what will they think? That if the lady bullshitted them on that, she might've bullshitted them on other things? That the whole "be careful" speech is based on crap? I think that is exactly what they'll conclude. Then when they find themselves in a steamy situation with a member of the opposite sex and those hormones are screaming stick it in! there will be no reason not to, condom or not.

A lot more could have been accomplished by being honest with them. The speaker could've just told them the facts very frankly. It's not like you have to lie about sex to get their attention when you're talking about it-- all you have to do is bring it up, and you've got their undivided attention, period. By bullshitting them, she defeated her own purpose. But I guess if kids stop getting pregnant and getting std's, she's out of a job. So maybe it was a huge success from her standpoint.

Stupid bitch.

Today will be less exciting. They've got to take a quiz, and the rest of their time with me will be uneventful. I hope to get them to read today. Getting them to do work is becoming more and more difficult, and the days are starting to feel longer. Spring Fever has set in. The sun is shining, it's warm, and everyone feels so oppressed having to sit in a classroom and watch the perfect weather through a window.

Labels: Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', professional screw-ups, stupid people, The Government is Raping Us

I'm a SuperTeacher. You didn't know? I can teach three weeks' worth of new material to unmotivated low achievers in one week while simultaneously reviewing 21 weeks' worth of old material, reteaching and retesting last week's material, and fitting in the required one day of small groups per week and 20 minutes of reading per day.

I can outline every last detail of it on a lesson plan so clearly that a substitute or another teacher could come in and do it exactly as I planned to.

And I can make them LIKE IT!

I can get 3 hours' worth of paperwork done in 45 minutes. In the same 45 minutes, I can call 4 parents and document the details of each phone call, reprint progress reports for 6 students who lost theirs, order a new toner cartridge, file 180 graded students assignments into 80 different student folders, go to the teacher workroom on the other end of campus and scan 80 tests, record 80 test grades in the gradebook--- twice--- once by pen in the paper gradebook, and once in the electronic gradebook because I'm required to do both, submit copies for tomorrow's lessons, write 16 test questions at various depths of knowledge, take a phone call from a counselor to discuss John Doe and mark my calendar for the parent conference we're having tomorrow, fill out behavior modification documents on John Doe and three of his cohorts, look up 80 addresses in the computer and write them onto 80 envelopes, make copies of the 80 letters that are going into the 80 envelopes, stuff the 80 letters into the 80 envelopes, run the envelopes up to the "outgoing mail" basket, file the 80 copies of the letters into the proper student files so I can prove I sent them, erase the answers off the board from the previous class, and get to the doorway and muster a smile before the next class comes. Then I greet them warmly and spend the next two hours appearing to be-- a) not stressed out at all, and b) completely focused on them.

In the English department meeting, I can bite my tongue when I am criticized for not having accomplished 100% of the above during my 45 minute break. I can smile and agree that I am not meeting the expectations of my job. I can smile when it is implied that this means that I don't care about my students, that I may have something negative noted in my evaluation and/or my personnel file, or that my students' lack of achievement is the result of my shortcomings.

When I get home at the end of the day, I turn on the tv and see a politician promising to "raise the bar" on these schools, get rid of lazy educators, and begin paying teachers based on their students' performance.

And none of it gets to me, cause it's just a job after all. And I don't really care anyway, remember?

Labels: Bureaucratic Incompetence, Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', it's my pity party and I'll bitch if I want to, teacher life

(This post may contain TMI.)

This morning I was reading a message board by women who have PCOS and are trying to conceive. For those of you who don't know, PCOS is Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. With this condition, the body doesn't use sugar properly. Sugar causes insulin to flood the bloodstream and "feed back" to the ovaries, who then refuse to release eggs. Instead they form cysts and release too many of the wrong hormones. Those wrong hormones produce all kinds of unwanted effects and complicate the situation further. It's a real clusterfk. That's the short version, anyway.

The problem is that since gynecologists are the only people who ever explore your girl parts, they're the ones who usually end up diagnosing this disease. And the problem with that is that they don't know jack shit about the hormonal side of it, so they end up treating the symptoms and not the causes. If you want real treatment, you have to seek it out. Regardless of that, it shouldn't take a genius to read a snippet or two about the condition and figure out that sugar is poison to your reproductive system if you have this disease.

When I was reading on this message board, I saw posts by women who have been trying to get pregnant for months or years. They've seen fertility specialists, they've taken Clomid and more aggressive drugs, they've had the follicles on their ovaries measured. Some of them have gotten pregnant only to miscarry. I mean they're really putting themselves through a lot of crap to have kids.

Then I noticed that one of them had a "signature" that proclaimed her love for Dr. Pepper. Then I read a post by another woman who said that she has to drink only clear liquids for 24 hours before a certain medical procedure, and that it's gonna kill her because she loves her coffee. Hey, I'm drinking coffee as I type this, so I'm not throwing stones. But in the posts that followed, I learned that she packs it full of sugar. The more I read, the more blown away I was. Everyone chimed in about how much they love their Dr. Pepper, or their Mountain Dew. Not a single time was the word "DIET" mentioned. And there's a whole thread on Christmas snacks. Brownies. Cakes. Pies.

Here these women are undergoing extensive and invasive medical procedures to get pregnant, but their diets are full of sugar. What gives? Do they not know? You would think that with all the docs they're seeing, someone would've informed them by now.

Sometimes I think people enjoy their medical conditions. Some people seem to enjoy the suffering, the trips to the doctor, the disappointment of not being able to get pregnant--- in short, they like the attention.

Yesterday at the movies, I ate a bunch of popcorn. Then we went to a Mexican restaurant, where I may have ingested some rice. Reading about these stupid people has renewed my desire to avoid bad things at all costs. I hope I get knocked up right away so I can go back to that website and tell them how I did it-- by eating no sugar or refined breads, drinking no Dr. Pepper or sugary coffee drinks, eating no pie or brownies. In short, by not being an idiot.

People are stupid.

Labels: Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', I am not a hypochondriac, stupid people

Why do bras cost so much? The last two I bought were $40 each. Today I bought three, and they were $29 each, except there was a buy 2 get 1 free special, and the one hundred and eight year old customer service lady, Willie, gave me a coupon for $10 off. My total was $57 and some change. Fifty seven dollars for three bras-- and that's supposed to be a huge bargain. Without the special and then the coupon, it would've been $93.09 including tax. Can you believe titties are that high maintenance? I'm not even to the age where they require REAL maintenance yet.

Men only think they appreciate all the work that goes into being a woman.

Labels: Good Old Fashioned Bitchin'

Nine weeks exams start tomorrow. Some of my kids take it tomorrow, and some take it Friday. Today we spent the entire day reviewing and working on a rather rigorous "study guide."

They did a fair job. Most of them, anyway.

Some of them just aren't going to catch on no matter what I do. Need an example of why I think this? I can think of a few. First, a little background.

I taught them three methods for fixing run-on sentences. They are:

1. Use a semicolon between the two complete thoughts,
2. Use a comma and a conjunction between the two complete thoughts, or
3. Put a period at the end of the first complete thought and capitalize the first word of the second one, making the run-on into two separate sentences.

(Yes, I realize there's a fourth method. I was just trying to keep it simple because I didn't think they'd use the fourth method, which involves words like "therefore" and "however." Those aren't really in their vocab yet.)

They also have been practicing fixing fragments. When talking about fragments, I told them that a fragment is a piece of a sentence. I used the illustration of a broken lamp. If I drop my mother's lamp and it breaks into pieces, I have fragments of that lamp in the floor. To make it whole again, I have to glue the pieces together to make it complete. A fragment of a sentence needs some missing piece that it has to have in order to be complete. Simple enough?

Read on. But first, stop to thank the good Lord for your 8th grade English teacher, who helped give you the ability.

Another treasure of 8th grade English is author's purpose: to inform, to entertain, to persuade, or to express.

They also have to know the story elements, which are character, setting, plot, etc.

We've practiced these things for so long that I honestly don't know how else to present it or how else to get them to practice it.

So (to get to the point) imagine my pain when I ask a child to tell me one of the story elements, and he says, "Comma and a conjunction." Or when another one says, "Author's purpose!"

Or when I ask someone what the author's purpose is, and they say, "A semicolon."

Or when we've written down and identified and provided examples for all three methods for fixing run-ons, and a kid who has apparently been asleep suddenly looks up and raises her hand like she's just figured out something brand new, and loudly declares that the way to fix a broken climax is to glue it together, like Mamma's lamp.

Orrrr when I give them a fragment to rewrite, and they stick a semicolon in there randomly.

They can't identify an independent clause because an independent clause is a complete thought, and none of them has ever had one.

Labels: Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', teacher life

The amount of bullshit in my job is overwhelming. I've said before that for every hour I spend teaching, I have to spend two hours doing paperwork to prove that I'm teaching-- or that I'm adhering to the special plans for the SPED kids, or that I'm doing this or that or the other thing that might leave someone behind. I'm all for accountability, but some of this shit needs to be eliminated, and the rest needs done by a freaking secretary. Every time some asshole who doesn't work in a classroom gets the bright idea for a way to make HIS job easier, it makes mine harder. EVERYTHING falls to the teachers. Let me ask you this: Since we're the ones who spend the time in the classroom with the kids, doing the actual teaching, shouldn't someone else step in and take care of some of the documentation? I mean, wouldn't that free us up to, oh, I don't know, TEACH?

It's not like I don't work my ass off. If a piece of paper doesn't get printed out, is that really worth knocking morale down ten points for? I'd take this kind of thing much better if I didn't have to get to work at 7:30, leave at 5:30, and work at home until 9:30 just to keep my head above water.

Anyway, the thing is that at any given time there are at least a dozen things which must be done, and each and every one of those things is urgent. Everything is at the very top of the list of priorities. There's not much room up there, you know. I like my bosses-- all forty seven of them-- but I don't think it's right that I'm given 900 things to do, and all 900 must be done immediately and they shit their pants if it's not, but they've got one or two things that they're supposed to be doing for me, and I can just suck it until they get around to doing it at their leisure.

I'm still taking off Friday. I was going to go visit my mom and 'nem in North MS, but now I'm thinking about just using the day to catch up on work. Right now I'm debating on it. Maybe I will work at home all day Friday and try to get most of my work done, and go up there Saturday morning if I feel like it.

Labels: Bureaucratic Incompetence, Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', teacher life

My lesson was awesome again today. For my two hour classes, it involved some reading. We are reading Monster, which all of the kids are interested in because it's about a teenager who's on trial for murder, and there are apparently a few curse words as well as a rape scene. This book is notorious among our youngsters. The eighth grade reads it every year, and every year the seventh graders hear about the juicy stuff from them and beg the teachers to let them read it. So my eighth graders have been looking forward to this for a year, and today when I pulled out the classroom set they nearly came unglued. Some people may say it's inappropriate to let kids read a book that includes a spattering of damns and maybe a shit here and there, or a rape scene. I say whatever it takes. These kids have seen and heard worse than anything this book will show them. More importantly, I've never seen a class of thirteen year olds literally overjoyed at the prospect of reading a book. An issue of Dub magazine, yes. An actual book? Not so much. They are reading a book, and they are loving it. Mission accomplished.

I have not read Monster. Well, I've read the first 25 pages now. I must admit I'm eager to read it too. Of course it's because I'm excited about teaching the elements of literature, and not because I want to read about a sixteen year old getting raped in prison. My favorite college roommate was an English Education major, and she had to read it for an adolescent lit class, and she told me about it then. She thought it was great. Of course, she was high most of the time, so...

...she would probably know...

This weekend will not be a relaxing one for me. If I get started on my work now and don't take any breaks, I might be done by Tuesday. There's a mountain of crap for me to grade, and I have to plan some decent lessons this week. They changed their minds about how detailed our lesson plans have to be, and now they're going to take me twice as long to write. I was barely getting it finished before. And the superintendent is coming to observe us Monday. On top of that, my house is trashed. Nary a towel has been folded in six weeks, and our coffee table is buried under papers and cups and who knows what else. My bedtime routine now includes moving a pile of clothes from the bed to the floor, then back to the bed the next morning, and we're pretending the kitchen doesn't even exist.

Today I went to Office Depot to get one of those rolling cart thingies to haul my weekend burdens back and forth. I checked out laptops while I was there, because that is my new longing. I could really use one for work. This Wednesday I had to spend an afternoon planning in a group of teachers and that experience confirmed that I need a laptop. I kept having to borrow people's jump drives and run back and forth between three computers to get everything I needed to one place. Meanwhile, two teachers who had their own laptops were making a major dent in their plans without moving from where they started. I was running myself ragged, and decided I'd tell TH I needed a laptop. He said fine. But then I started looking. I thought I would be able to get a decent one for a decent price, but you have to spend $1,000 to get anything good. I could get one for $600 or $700, but I don't know if it's worth it or not. I don't want to get a cheap machine that will not last two years, or that will be unable to run new software two years from now. At the same time, I don't want to spend $1,500 on one. It would make things easier, but I guess I can get by without one. Maybe Santa will bring me one. I've been good, you know.

Labels: Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', teacher life

When TH graduated from pharmacy school, he also graduated from living in a rusted out trailer in the crappy part of town to having a little cash in his pocket. So he did what any 23 year old would do--- started buying cds. (And I don't mean the kind at the bank.)

I don't know how many he has, but it's in the hundreds. Probably at least 700 or 800. He only had two small storage towers, which didn't even come close to holding all the cds. There are eight boxes filled with cds crammed in the corner of the office, and they've been there for years. For a while, I've been advocating the purchase of a decent storage device for the rest of the cds. I imagined a nice piece of furniture that would have closing doors on the front to completely conceal the cds. TH imagined not spending more than $50 on it. (Only the best for us!)

So today we got this:



If you're ever considering buying a piece of furniture-- whether it be a cd storage shelf, a bookshelf, or a nightstand-- make sure it doesn't require assembly. Even if it's cheap and tempting, just walk away. Spend the $200 on a real piece of furniture.

I spent almost all day assembling this pile of crap. When it was done, it was kinda flimsy, so I took it apart and tightened some things up, then put it back together. Once it was fully assembled it still looked like exactly what it is--- cheap Chinese crap.

With the cds on it, I think it will look okay, but I'll always know.

Labels: Good Old Fashioned Bitchin'

Okay, so you know I've been dealing with these stupid plumbers. Every few days the main guy, John, tells me that the other guy, Joe, is going to be at my house the very next day. And every day they have a reason they weren't there. The rain, the high number of jobs they have, a broken van, an injured worker-- I've heard all of those and more. Occasionally, someone shows up, fails to make any progress, and says they'll have to do this or that or return later with this tool or that one.

So Monday I called him and told him it needs to get done this week because I have to return to work next Monday. He responded with, "Oh, it ain't gonna be next week-- it's gonna be tomorrow for sure!" Right. So the next day, he said someone would be here Wednesday. Wednesday, he said someone would be here Thursday. I got a little short with him on the phone on Wednesday. I'm tired of this horse crap. TIRED. I want this finished. It has been the theme of my life the last many months, and I want it out of the way before I go back to work. I don't want to have to deal with these jackasses anymore. On Monday I will have brand new jackasses to deal with. It's time for this particular jackass to realize his turn is up and move aside. Anyway, in keeping with tradition, Thursday he said someone would be here Friday.

Yesterday was Friday. TH was at work at the hospital, and I was arranging desks on the other side of town. I had my cell phone on and it showed that it had a signal inside the classroom. They usually call my cell, so I figured I'd just run home when they called. IF they called. I wasn't exactly holding my breath.

My room is near the main door to the building. Around 3:00, I was sitting next to the old teacher (while she showed me yet another form that I'm not going to remember) when the main doors flew open violently. We looked up, and there stood TH, huffing and puffing and obviously in a hurry.

Last time someone practically broke down a door to come tell me something, it was because my cousin had been in an awful wreck. So my first thought was that someone had died or been in a wreck or something. I should have known that any and all chaos in our life right now must be plumber related. He said the plumber was at the house and was on the clock and there was nobody there to let him in. My cell phone didn't ring when TH tried to call.

So I hauled butt home, only to find that the plumber hadn't even tried to call me because he was working outside and didn't need me. TH had called the plumbers from work on his break and found out they were at the house and freaked out thinking they were sitting in a truck in the driveway getting paid for nothing. In his defense, that doesn't seem to be out of the realm of possibility with these fellas.

Anyway, after digging a hole in my yard and doing a bunch of other crap (including giving us a $2,000 bill for the sewer work they already did) the guy decided we need to replace 60 feet of 2" pipe across the front yard. He says this trouble is because of something the first plumber did. The one who REALLY ripped us off. He said if we decide to sue that guy's company, he'll vouch that it's his fault and testify or whatever.

He's liable for all this. He's in jail right now, but we're seriously considering suing his employer. Very seriously considering it. We have a case, we can prove our case, and I'm sure we could recoup all this money. There have been several times in the past when I/we had grounds to sue someone, but neither of us ever has because we're not greedy people and nothing has ever really been so huge that we felt it was worth the trouble. In this case, I think it might be worth it.

Who could blame us??

Labels: Good Old Fashioned Bitchin', professional screw-ups, stupid people, this house is trying to kill me