Don’t
touch that school day! You don’t know where that school day’s been.
It
could have been in all kinds of trouble. Could have been hanging out with undesirables.
Acting the big shot. Racking up detention. Some school days, like puny fish,
you want to throw back.
With
school starting this week, the innocent elementary students, the ones not yet broken
in on how the real school-world works, might find comfort in knowing that we’ve
been there. If they say or act as if they’ve had a bad day at school, they
probably actually have, and it’s not necessarily their fault. Life happens,
both in the elementary and grown-up worlds. Sometimes you’re the windshield,
sometimes you’re the bug.
Offer support and remember from your own experience
some of the worst things that can happen during a day at elementary school:
It rains out recess.
You have a substitute but the substitute makes you “do
something.”
Your “girlfriend” gives you your Tiger eye ring
back, and she does it through another friend because she doesn’t have the guts
to face you. Or because she just can’t stand the sight of you anymore. This
after you almost got a stomach ulcer the day you asked her to be your
girlfriend. Which was Tuesday. And this is Thursday. It was fun while it
lasted.
The good news: You beat your big brother in “Madden”
last night. The bad news: you forgot you had a spelling test today. Anybody
know how to spell separate? Is it “seperate” or “saperate” or did I have it
right the first time? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?
You get shorted a fish stick at lunch.
Your best friend is absent, probably at home playing
“Madden” and eating fish sticks.
You get caught passing notes and the teacher picked
it up before you were even finished so all you’d written was, “This is the most
boring class in the world and our teacher is stup…”
You get a bad seat on the school bus.
Nobody throws up. Or worse, you were in the bathroom
when somebody DID throw up, so you missed it. Somebody throwing up can carry
you along, conversation-wise, for weeks and sometimes for months, depending on
who threw and where.
You left your homework, which you actually
completed, at home. The teacher might have actually believed you if you hadn’t
got caught passing that note. Sigh…
You got a scuff mark on your new Converse.
Your new Converse are rubbing a blister on your
heel.
Somebody threw up on your new Converse.
You threw up on your new Converse.
You found out from a friend that your parents know
something that you did that you didn’t think they knew. Busted.
You just remembered you have to mow your English
teacher’s grass after you get home. Oh, the humanity!
You thought it was 11:20 but you’d looked at the
clock wrong and it’s only 10:20.
Lost your best pencil.
You find out in sixth period that you’ve had a piece
of breakfast on your face all day, including when you saw your ex-girlfriend at
lunch, who was with the new kid and who looked at you like you had turnips
growing out of your nostrils.
You’re walking into science class and the smart kid
walking out is crying and mumbling something about “isomeric structure.” Help
me Oprah!
You’ve heard about it. You’ve dreaded it. And now,
it’s here: long division.
You realize it’s only the third week in August.
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