I Think I May Have Super Powers…

Because yesterday I leaped across several desks in a single bound. Call me crazy, but I think that counts.

I am literally counting the hours to the end of the school year. This time of year there is absolutely NO TEACHING going on whatsoever. Everybody starts stripping their rooms and packing everything away. Kids lay around the classroom, doing what they please. It is impossible to teach until the end in this environment. So, being the control freak that I am, I have attempted to give my friends SOMETHING to do everyday. Today they were scrap booking. I printed out multiple copies of all the pictures we’ve taken this year and they go nuts collaging pages to take home filled with memories. They’re actually kind of cute.

We had been in the classroom for an hour. An hour. And somehow I missed the mouse carcass in the back of the room.

Yes, you heard me correctly.

I was busy organizing some files when a friend came over to me.

Friend: Mrs. Mimi? Can I go to the bathroom?
Me: Sure sweetheart.
Friend: Um, and I wanted to tell you privately, but there’s a dead rat by my desk.
Me: WHAT?
Friend: There’s a dead rat near my desk.
Me: Um, oh, OK….well, thank you for keeping it between you and me. Um, go ahead to the bathroom and when you come back, come sit over here by me. I’ll get someone to take care of it. Do you think you can keep it a secret? (I practically am begging as visions of screaming children danced in my head)
Friend: Sure, Mrs. Mimi.

Impressed with my friend’s adult behvior in this situation, I glance over to the area in question. And yes, there is a dead mouse. (Not a rat…they always say rat…no idea why.) It’s on it’s sad with it’s little paw curled up. It’s almost like a cartoon. But it’s real. And in my room. And gross.

I think to myself, “Why did I wear open toe shoes to work today?” as I get that creepy feeling you get when you walk past a hill of ants in flip flops.

Luckily, no one else seems to have noticed our “visitor.”

I call the office and request a custodian to come deal with the carcass.

20 minutes go by.

I call back, as a little reminder and mention that there are twenty children in the room and could they please hurry?

20 more minutes go by.

I wonder what they are doing since my garbage hasn’t been emptied and my classroom hasn’t been swept in about a week.

10 more minutes.

However, no one other than my friend has noticed, so I consider myself fortunate.

And then….

A voice literally thunders, “WHERE’S THE DEAD RAT??!?!” from the doorway. You can almost hear brakes squealing the background as all the children freeze and then simultaneously look to me to gauge how they should react (isn’t it weird how kids do that?)

I literally leapt across an arrangement of four desks while simultaneously shooting my kids my super hero silencing glare. KA-ZAM! And then I whisk the custodian into the hallway and explain the need to be discreet.

In the end, the dead mouse was removed, the kids kept scrapbooking and Super Mimi saved the day.