Confessions of a Former Teacher #1: I Stole the Baby!

[Ok, first of all, the last part of the title should be read in the voice of the brownie in the movie Willow.  If you missed that on the first read, try again.  If you don’t know what I’m talking about (sigh heavily) then check out this clip before reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keKbt3dyXhA ]

As you know by now, I have quit teaching.  And now that the dust has settled a little… the three-hole punch is packed away and the glue has dried on the “about me” collages…  I feel it’s time to let you all in on a few choice secrets from my thirteen-year career.  Prepare to gasp.

This first shocking tale of mayhem comes from my very first semester as a teacher.  I was twenty-three years old and teaching 7^th grade language arts in Cedar Park, TX.  And I warn you, there are so many things wrong with this story, your judgmental brain won’t even know where to begin.

Let me set the scene.

It’s December.  The chilly Texas air keeps threatening to drop below 40°F.  It’s nine school days before the holiday break.  The students are restless.  The teachers are restless.  Tacky Christmas sweaters are being donned with no irony at all.  And then, quite suddenly, it appears in the break room:  a nativity scene made out of chocolate.

Chocolate Nativity Scene.  Just as you pictured it.

I don’t know who brought it.  I never heard anyone say a word about it.  But there it was.  Every day as I ate my homemade peanut butter sandwich or my cafeteria-bought chicken nuggets, out of the corner of my eye, hovering in my periphery, making a comfortable nest in the back of my mind, it was there.  Milk chocolate Mary.  Juicy Joseph. Scrumptious shepherd. Cocoa camel.  Mouth-watering wise men.  And that sweet, savory morsel—baby Jesus himself.

Every day for two weeks, I walked past this gaudy display and three thoughts occurred simultaneously to my brain.  Is a nativity scene really allowed in a public school?  Isn’t it kinda sacrilegious to cast our Lord and Savior in chocolate?  Why can’t I stop salivating? 

Every day for two weeks, it sat there, getting a little drier, a little more chalky in appearance, a wise man or two wilting just a bit.  Taunting me.

And then school was out for the holidays.  Students fled the campus, half-eaten candy canes hanging from their smile-stretched mouths.  Teachers sped away in their sensible sedans, the gleam of freedom shining in their eyes like starlight.  The campus would be a ghost town for two full weeks.

Except…

Two days after school let out, my Crazy Cousin Kelley came to visit me.  And she brought along her friend Matt.  And, proud new teacher that I was, I wanted to show them where I worked. 

Matt, Crazy Cousin Kelley, Me

Since the tour of my classroom (an extremely unimpressive space in a portable building with chalk boards and fake wood paneling) only took about a minute and half, I decided to wow them with a trip into the school building itself.  I showed them the rows of maroon lockers and pointed inside locked classrooms at the dry erase boards.  (Look!  Look at the fancy stuff the INDOOR teachers get!)  I pointed at posters advertising upcoming dances and demonstrated how my key unlocked both computer labs AND faculty restrooms, and my fans oohed and ahhed appropriately.

After I showed them the cafetorium (a fantastical place where people can both eat fish sticks AND enjoy off-key choir performances) and pointed out my favorite sign in the whole school (handwritten, hanging over the gym door, proudly proclaiming Do Not Take Balls Out—good advice by the way), we finally found ourselves in the break room.  And IT was still there.  In the rush to disperse at the last bell of the year, the chocolate nativity had been forgotten.

And, come on, from that point on it was really a no-brainer. 

The heavenly dessert

So, yes, Crazy Cousin Kelley and I stole the baby chocolate Jesus from the candy nativity scene in the break room of the middle school where I taught.  Matt, bless his pious little heart, cannot be blamed.  He tried to talk us out of it.  He said it wasn’t right.  And later, when the conquest was complete and Kelley and I indulged in our very guilty pleasure Matt adamantly refused to participate.  His soul remained pure.  His teeth remained free of the devilish brown stain left by the sweet baby Jesus.

However, my Crazy Cousin and I were beyond reasoning.  Satan had a hold of our taste buds and he wasn’t letting go.  We barely made it to the parking lot before we had to satisfy our craving and taste our victory.  And our victory tasted like… a two-week-old piece of chocolate that had been sitting out in the germ-infested air of a school.  Ah well.  We were in our twenties.  Our immune systems were strong.

The first sacri-licious bite

After the giddy drive home, Cousin Kelley and I celebrated our baby-Jesus-stealing in the obvious way:  we wrote a song about it.  Borrowing the tune (and quite a few of the lyrics) from REM, we commemorated our triumph with a ballad.  The lyrics are found below.  [Beware:  Once you read them, you may never be able to listen to “Losing My Religion” in the same way again.  So, if you wish not to sully that sacred musical experience, I suggest you use the utmost restraint and stop after the next paragraph.]

So there you have it.  Confession #1.  The sweet, caring, hard-working young woman you trusted to educate the next generation is nothing more than a thief, a heretic, a baby Jesus eater.  It feels good to admit it.

“Losing Our Religion”

Lyrics by Carie and Kelley

Music stolen from REM

[Note:  I have no doubt that I could do better than this today.  I believe my musical spoof skills have improved considerably in the past thirteen years.  But I am resisting the urge to revise.  This is the song, unchanged, as it was written in December of 1999.  Don’t hate.]

Oh Christ, is smaller

Smaller when molded

Into chocolate

The lengths that I would go to

To see it in bite size

Oh no, I've said too much

I set it up

That's me in the break room

That's me in the bright light

Stealing baby chocolate Jesus

Trying to sneak it out with you

And I don't know if I can do it

Oh no, I've said too much

I haven't said enough

I thought that I felt it melting

I shouldn’t be doing this thing

I think I heard Matt start to cry

With every swallow

I’m waiting to devour

I'm losing to temptation

Trying to keep my mind off it

Like a hungry and sinful fool, drool

Oh no, I've said too much

I set it up

Consider this

Consider this

Jesus is calling to me

Consider this

 I bit

It brought me to my knees

STALE

Now my whole theology has

Crashed to the ground

Now I've bit too much

 "STALE!"

I bet that it was fattening

I shouldn’t have eaten this thing

I think if asked I will deny

I wish it was a dream

CHOCOLATE NATIVITY SCENE

That's me in the break room

That's me in God’s light

Stealing baby chocolate Jesus

Trying to sneak it out with you

And I know now that I can do it

Oh no, I've said too much

I think I’ve said enough

I bet that it was fattening

I shouldn’t have eaten this thing

I think if asked I will deny

I wish it was a dream

Try, die, cry, why

CHOCOLATE NATIVITY SCENE

Caused a scene

Just a scene, seen

360 Degrees of Silver Lining

Today was a very frustrating day.  I knew it would be, and it did not disappoint. 

But I am not going to write about the events of my day.  Because the causes of my frustration do not deserve that attention.  Instead, I want to share my silver lining.

This evening, after margaritas and Tex-Mex food with my amazing husband—after feeling the knots in my shoulders relax with every affirmation and feeling my smile stretch with every chuckle and every shared eye roll—I stopped by HEB for some much needed chocolate before heading home. 

When I stepped out of my car, I was greeted by the most amazing sunset lighting up the sky. 

I don’t often get to enjoy the sunset anymore.  Growing up, our house faced a wide expanse of south-western sky, and except for a few power lines and telephone poles, we had an unobstructed view of many a sunset.  My dad, the family photographer, would glance out the window during dinner and say, “Would you look at that!” and then bolt out the front door, camera in hand, to capture the pinks and purples and oranges of the sun’s descent.  And then he would keep popping up for the next half hour to go charging out the front door to snap more pictures as the colors changed, progressed, evolved across the horizon.

I think I inherited my love of sunsets from him.

But now my house sits in a low point, facing north, not a good location for sunset-watching.  Often if I do get to see a brilliant display, it happens while driving home from work when I have to gaze at the sight peripherally, catching glimpses at stoplights and between buildings.  It’s not the same.

But today, while standing in the HEB parking lot, I found myself staring at a gorgeous sunset. 

What was so dazzling was that it did not just light up the western sky.  The entire horizon, all 360 degrees, was alive with color and playful cloud formations.  Everywhere I turned, I was greeted with bright reds and purples or muted oranges and pinks or faded mauves and streaks of yellow.  It was beautiful.

And it gave me the chance to acknowledge the silver linings in my day.  

Yes, on the whole, today is a day I would not care to repeat.  It was one of selfishness and waste and misspent hours.  But that part of my day ended.  And then I came home to someone I love very much.  And who loves me back.  I laughed.  I ate guacamole.  I bought enough chocolate to last me… well, the weekend at least.  And I saw a stunning 360-degree sunset that appeared in the heavens regardless of what kind of day any of us had. 

These are the things I choose to focus on this evening.  And tomorrow.  And this weekend when I am sitting next to the love of my life finishing off a dark chocolate sea salt bar and feeling wonderful and just a tad sick at the same time.  These are the things that matter.  These are my silver linings.

Tomorrow the frustrations will be back.  New ones will appear, some far greater than I can even imagine.  But I will deal with them.  And I will laugh.  And I will come home to those I love.  And I will treat myself with chocolate.  And I will not let those frustrations bring me down. 

Never. 

**Photo Locations in order of appearance:  Austin, Texas; Terlingua, Texas; Multnomah Falls, Oregon; Netarts Bay, Oregon, Marathon, Texas