6: Terry's team

It was Monday morning and I knew there would be a new student joining my class. Just as the day was beginning, the principal knocks on my door and drops off a new bundle of love. A freckly, pale, skinny kid walks in wearing baggy jeans--tapered and tight against the ankles, a big purple fleece shirt, and dusty red hair in a buzz cut.

I’m playing the pronoun game because at this point I seriously have no idea if this is a he or she. I would have put $20 down on it being a boy based on the looks and haircut.

“This is Misty. She will be joining your class,” he introduces to the class.

After showing Misty to her desk and reading the class a story, it was time for recess. Since this was her first day, I went outside to check to see if Misty was interacting with the other children. I notice many kids circling around her, taking turns rubbing her head. I walk over and ask what is going on.

Misty pointed at her hair, “Terry cuts it!” She says proudly.
“Who’s Terry?” I asked her.
“My cousin.” I left it at that and class resumed.

At the end of the day, I got some of the kids on the short bus and was waiting out front for the kids who are picked up. Suddenly, a big black Dodge Ram Diesel truck roars into the parking lot. A woman, who resembled John Goodman, jumps out of the truck and comes over. I just knew this barn door of a woman had to be related to the new girl.

“I’m Terry, Misty’s cousin.”

The only reason I knew this was a woman was because of her mammoth breasts that filled her sleeveless flannel shirt. This was Terry, the source of Misty’s haircut. As the extended cab diesel truck pulled out of the school parking lot, the rear hatch of the cab read in bold white letters: “Terry and Joan’s Pet Groomers”.

That was all the explanation I needed.

5: Sara is hungry

Sara is 6 years old, her goal in life seems to be limited to seeking out food and rapidly devouring it as fast as possible.

Needless to say, Sara has a weight problem. She'll eat anything--a crumb off the floor, gum off a shoe, she even licks other kids fingers if there’s remnants of food present on them. For this reason, we cannot have a speck of food anywhere in the room or she will find it and eat it.

Sara is beginning to understand that she is not allowed near the cubbyholes where the other kids keep their lunches, but I find her sniffing around on occasion. One day, I had the kids lined up at the door to head to the music room. As I was doing a head count, I noticed Sara was not in line. I also noticed all the winter coats were not on their hooks, but were piled in a heap near the cubbyholes in the back of the classroom. There was obvious movement within this pile.

I find Sara in the center of this coat blob, face full of tard lunches, happier than I've ever seen her.

All she could say to me when I pulled the coats off her was, "Can I play the tambourine today?"

4: Boo has a rash

Although there are the corn fed kids that make up my class, there are also the random ones who, instead of coming from the Old Crowe guzzling NASCAR families, come from the absentee father and the Bombay Gin soaked Karen Walker type mother--whose drinking problems developed AFTER the birth of the tard.

On that note, let me introduce Boo. Boo’s real name is Bill but he can’t get the “L” sound to work so he (and his mother) insist we call him Boo. Boo can only be described by the word, “floppy”.

His daily attire is plus-sized Ralph Lauren clothes. I did not even know Ralph Lauren made plus sized children's clothes until I met him. And he stinks like body odor and hot fart, with a hint of baby powder that his nanny sprinkles on his inner thighs. She does this because he has a constant rash between his thighs because he is fat and his large sweaty thighs chafe when he walks

One Monday afternoon when everyone was out for recess, Boo had to stay indoors on account of his allergies. I was enjoying a nice lunch and the rare moment of peace and quiet until I heard a noise that could only be described as a wet smacking sound. When I looked to see where the sound was coming from, there was Boo, in the corner, naked from the waist down, rolling around on the ground, grinning from ear to ear, smacking his enormous thighs together shouting,

“Yay! Yay! Yay!”

Apparently it felt good on his rash. Needless to say my lunch was promptly discarded and I will never be able to eat vanilla yogurt again.

3: I can't eat at McDonald's anymore

Today was a special day for my kids. At the end of every month, they have a review. If they improved in any way, i.e. they learned how to color, or learned how say the name of a color correctly, or just don't grab their genitals in class, then we all go to McDonald’s for Happy Meals.

This month everyone did well in standards, so we planned a trip to McDonald’s for Wednesday. We always go around 10:30 since we don’t want to hold the line for lunch up.

One kid in particular, Erik, spends large amounts of time repeating, “Ma…don…al” and not saying what he wants. The conversation typically goes like this:

Me: “Chicken nuggets or a hamburger..”
Erik: “Ma…don…al”
Me: “Yes it is, now do you want chicken or cow?”
Erik: “Ma…don….al.”
Me: “You can’t eat Ronald, it’s either chicken or cow.”
Anni: “Look….milking!” (as she squeezes her nippies)

Today went more smoothly…except for Stevie passing gas at the front on the line. I had to take a 5-minute break from ordering and the manager had to spray deodorizer. It was that bad. It was the very worst thing I had ever smelled in my life.

Imagine a kid in a wheel chair that just drools and can’t pronounce words, he can only point. His breakfast usually consists of those protein/vitamin milk drinks and some kind of bran muffin. (he sometimes has constipation problems). Now imagine the bran and milk leaving his body in gas form, and occasionally, in pungent liquid form.

This stench was so bad it caused many customers and a few employees to vacate the restaurant and has ruined me on McDonald’s since.

2: Milking

There are two tards in my class, Anni and Jay, that live relatively close to each other, and sometimes they come to school together. After today, I am guessing they must also play together.

I come into my classroom 5 minutes after my tards are finished with recess. I was late because I was talking to another teacher and lost track of time.

[Before I tell you the rest picture in your head how the vacuum looks when you put the tube end on instead of the vacuum head when you clean your walls or ceiling as opposed to the floor.]

I walk into the room to find Anni on all fours with her shirt hiked up and Jay holding the tube handle of the vacuum cleaner against her boob.

Jay “Miss Pell! Look!…..Milking!”
Anni “HA HA HA!,” laughs Anni with an aroused tard smile on her face.

I had to stifle the laughter and tears as I un-hooked the “milker” and told them to take their seats for coloring.

Entry 1: My kids eat corn

My school is located in a fairly rural state. We have a varying mix of metropolitan city dwellers, suburbanites, and the good ol' corn fed folk. A few of my kids come from farms or trailer courts near and/or around the city I work in.

Unfortunately, many of these same kids come from lower income households. Many of these people are poor because they do not know how to manage money. At an average house, the household income is budgeted in this hierarchy: alcohol, trailer payments, scratch off lottery tickets, and only then feeding corn to their tard children.

How do I know that corn is a staple dinner for these tards? It all happened one day when one of my tards decided that her poop wasn’t waste, it was a fun toy. Not only that, but a toy that I would enjoy playing with.

Daria comes from typical tard family background. The mother drank all through out the pregnancy, burdening Daria with fetal alcohol syndrome. Sadly, a standard issue trailer park story from around here. She is a cute girl, except for her misshapen football head and the occasional fit of rage. She actually resembles Stewie from ‘The Family Guy.’

Anyway, Daria was digging in her Wal-Mart elastic-wasted pants, which she does on a regular basis, while I was trying to teach them how to play Red Rover. I ignored her for the time being and continued explaining the game. They of course could not understand the concept of why only one person got to run over at a time.

After 20 minutes of calling a name and then stopping multi-tard stampedes, Daria’s name was finally called. When she ran by she yelled,

“Miss Pell! PWESENT!”

Who knew she had aim? Her sticky little hand fired a corn dimpled log at my face, hitting me square in the face with her poop.

I was thus presented with undeniable proof that she eats a lot of corn.

I called my assistant to come watch the kids while I picked corn and fecal matter from my face and hair for the next 30 minutes, pondered my life as a sped teacher, and decided which bar happy hour would be at that day.

Kristy's First Entry:

I accepted a position as a special education teacher midway through last year. For me, being a sped teacher evokes many feelings. Pride, frustration, compassion, nausea, confusion, disgust, hilarity, sadness,--you get the point. It also inspires me to remember to take my birth control pill religiously.

When dealing with special needs children, saying that “progress” is measured in baby steps is an understatement. It’s measured in centipede steps with my assortment of kids. And after work, my frustration is measured by my BAC level.

My name is Kristy Pell and I teach K-5th grade at an elementary school in the south. I am almost 24 years old, and like Riti, I have to laugh (and drink) so I don't cry.