Some Teacher

I have a serious case of the Mondays today, people. It happens to the best of us. I think it has something to do with the following facts.

1. Nordic Boy, who returned from a biznazz trip on Friday, just departed this morning for another biznazz trip. Dang job. Making him travel and leave me alone to make dinner for myself. But alas, money must be made for the purchasing of plants to insert into the bald yard. Dolla dolla bills, ya'll.

2. The gods are peeing rain down on us again and this fetish is getting WAY OLD.

3. I have a mountain of TPS reports to do. Ok, maybe not a mountain. More like two. But that is two too many.

4. My pops and his neverending medical issues can wear me out sometimes. You know all this stuff about getting older is getting better and smear on some Oil of Olay and Age Defy yourself and all that? Screw that. Getting old is hard, and your body starts breaking down, and it's scary and mean and sucks major dingus.

Ok, mini-tantrum over. I've been thinking. I should talk about books on here sometimes. You know, me being a librarian and all, you'd think I'd want to talk about books. And by golly I do. And so I shall. Salt and Pepa? Sing us a little intro.

Let's talk about books, babe-ee
Let's talk about you, and me
Let's talk about all the good books
And the bad books that can be!

Too much? I think that was probably too much.

So rather than do a review of a book (because, let's face it, you go to Amazon or to your local library or to Goodreads or to Josh for those), I will do what I do best. Tell a silly story with no real point, but in this case a book will be the fundament to the whole shebang.

That is right. I said FUNDAMENT. I is so smart.

Let's start out with a crowd pleaser. Charlotte's Web. How about Charlotte's Web? That is SOME BOOK. Get it? Like, how Charlotte weaves "some pig" into her web? And I said SOME BOOK? Woo. I exhilarate meself.

I read Charlotte's Web for the first time in 2nd grade. Or rather, it was read to me. In our 2nd grade class, our teacher read aloud to us, a chapter at a time, right before lunch. It was the highlight of my day. Not only because it is a lovely book that teaches little urban kids that pigs are in serious danger of being killed up as soon as they are born and that the pig death could happen at any time after that point, but because my 2nd grade teacher was hella weird and she only stopped being weird when she read us that book.

Miss Tiva was mean. Not a big departure for me in my own personal teacher landscape, really. Not only was she mean though. She was an oddball. First of all, she picked her nose. Didn't even try to hide that shit, either. You'd think that, when teaching kids who are at the age when they need someone to model for them good nose hygiene, that one would refrain from nasal mining. Not Miss Tiva. Not only that, she picked at other things too. Her face, the underwear out of her crack, whatevers. Even as 2nd graders, a peer group where we were still learning basic bodily hygiene ourselves, we were all totally sicked out by Miss Tiva.

The other thing about Miss Tiva was that she was seriously hooked on phonics. Like, addicted to phonics. She would drill us on the goddamn phonics until we wanted to DIE.

Her: "Dog. Dah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahg. Repeat that please."
Us: "Dog. Dah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah..."

We would always get lost on those phonics things. We could never remember how many "ahs" or whatever to repeat.

Also? Miss Tiva freaked the shit out of me because this one time, I was at the eye doctor with my dad, and I turned the corner in a hallway, and there she was. Seeing a teacher outside of the classroom, just walking around in NORMAL SPACE is freaky enough. But what was even freakier was that there was TWO of her. Miss Tiva had a twin! Meanness times two! A child's worst nightmare! I could never shake this eerie feeling about her after that. In my mind, I was always thinking, she has a SPARE SELF.

But, for one chapter a day, I loved Miss Tiva. She read us that book and I forgot about her, and her scowl and her bad picking habits and her phonics. There is still a part of me that, when I read the words "Templeton" or "goslings" or "Charlotte," still hears those words in her voice.

Goslings. Gah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahslings.

I'm out,
Librarian Girl