Extroverted Flatulenteur - Not for the easily offended, you have been warned!!!!

Several years ago, actually around, OMG, 11 years ago. Where, oh where does time go? Anyways I began substitute teaching around 11 years ago. I loved it, absolutely loved it!!!!! You have to realize at that time we lived in a county, Meade, with a total population of 25,000. There was one high school, one middle school and approximately 8 elementary schools. I was in a classroom at least four days a week and it was usually in one elementary school, Ekron Elementary or I was at the middle school, Stuart Pepper Middle School. So, I got to know the kids in those two schools pretty well. The majority of the kids loved me as did the teachers. First off, one reason the teachers loved me is that I was capable of following their lesson plans, so when they came back the children really hadn't lost a day. Secondly, any classroom issues that ensued, or children I had difficulties with I did everything within my power to take care of myself. Have you ever gotten a baby sitter or left your child in a church nursery and when you went to pick 'em up, if the person in charge began telling you how unruly your child was you really didn't want to use that person again? Or how about this, have you ever taken your dog to the groomer and if they told you how horrible your dog was to handle you didn't want to go back to that groomer? Okay, alright, whatever. Your kids and dogs are perfect or you are far to intelligent to deal with things this way, but hey, you know, we do not live in a perfect world, therefore I am pathetically human. So the teachers didn't have to come back the next day with a note telling them this child did this and that child did that, blah, blah, blah. BLAH. I believe the kids loved me for several reasons but primarily because of three things. 1) I was consistent with the rules, what they saw is what they got 2) They knew I genuinely cared and 3) I didn't let the troubles of the day before, or the week before or the month before bleed into the new school day. They had a clean slate.

You know the little fellers are so sweet, so inquisitive and honest. There was this one little first grade girl, Brittany, who was particularly sweet. One day she came up to my desk and put her arm around my neck and placed her sweet little brunette head against mine and said, "Mrs. Sturgeon, I love you. Did you know I had lice a couple weeks ago?" "Oh, Brittany, I love you too, you really need to go sit AT YOUR DESK....NOW. I really do think you are sweet." And that was in the morning!!!! I had to wait all day to get home and have myself checked out. Ooooooo shutter, shutter.

My complete favorite age group was middle school. For me there was just something special about 7th & 8th graders. They can take care of themselves but they are still somewhat pliable. You can still impress them. Unlike high school students. One year I taught the last 5 1/2 weeks of high school mathematics. These classes had already ran off two other teachers. It was rough. But, I did survive. High school students aren't really impressed with anything, particularly the ones I had in those classes. Back to my story and the middle schoolers. When the teachers left a video or when I had a free period I always knitted and the kids were pretty amazed at that. One day this young man, Chad, wanted to know if I could knit like those chickens on the cartoons. You know, they move their elbows up and down and the knitting just flows. This is the same sweetie that told me his goal was to be a drag queen and since I was a Christian, what did I think Jesus thought about him wanting to be a drag queen. I told him Jesus loves us no matter what and we should just ask Him what we should do. He was really precious. There was this one particular literature class that I loved but they were rowdy, ROWOWOWOWDY! They had been reading Romeo and Juliet and the teacher had left the old 1970's version for them to watch. I knew the video had been edited to leave out the the semi-naked scene with Juliet. But, being the conniving, slick person I am I told them that I was really going to have to be attentive because there was a naked scene I had to make sure I fast forwarded through. You wouldn't believe it. Those kids were glued to the tv and kept asking, "Mrs. Sturgeon, is coming up?, Mrs. Sturgeon, we haven't missed it have we?" Best little white lie I ever told. :)

I'm finally getting to the whole crux of this story. I had a good friend who at that time taught 7th Mathematics, now she is an assistant principal there. There was another teacher in her group that taught 7th grade Science, we shall call him Carl. The names have been changed to protect my butt. :) Carl would come into the teachers lounge every day and proceed to tell us every detail about his evening prior. He was an only child and thought that the sun and the moon rose and set just for him. Anyways, my friend made the comment one day, "Carl can't even fart without having to come in and tell about it."

I've been thinking, I think I'm kinda like that. Well, I do not tell about my flatulence, however, I could tell you some doosies. No, now seriously, I think I AM like that. Purt near anything that goes on in my life I gotta tell somebody. And you poor blog readers get the brunt of my extroverted flatulence. How about you? Maybe that is why we are bloggers.


And of course my (our) Emma Belle at our church picnic. Saturday we are celebrating her 5th b-day. It is going to have a theme. Can you guess it? Guess you will have to wait until the next fart. I mean post.


I promise, I will not continue this gaseous topic beyond this post.