Here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo......

There's a period in the deep winter where teachers don't see the sun. We get to work before the sun rises, and leave after it has set. But this past week, I've been gifted with the sunrise on my way to work. It's not much sun, but it's enough to perk my mood. Speaking of mood, an interesting thing happened on Friday that really made me laugh.

We have several students who wear cute slippers to school. I've brought it up as a safety concern (I am a science teacher and broken glass happens), but was shot down. Picking battles and all that. Well, Alexa and her friend came up to show me their goofy kitty cat slippers. I mentioned to them that they were adorable, but I worried that one day they were going to wear these slippers on a day when we had a fire drill (remember from my earlier post? Sprinklers? Wet lawn? 40 degrees right now?). They laughed and went to their first period class.

I bet you can see where I'm going with this. Because we had an earthquake that very morning, the principal decided to hold a surprise earthquake drill. I shit you not, I had no idea it was going to happen. I ran into Alexa as she was walking in her socks to the football field (she didn't want to ruin the slippers), shivering and hopping from one frozen foot to the other).

Talk about learning a lesson the hard way.

I made sure to mention it to Alexa when I saw her later: "Oh Alexa, are you feeling better? Your feet must have been half-frozen! I was thinking about you the whole time we were out there and how cold and wet you must have been....."

I was thinking about her the whole time because her predicament gave me such a sense of schadenfreude.

One of the little tricks in middle school is this: you can't tell them "I told you so!" It only breeds resentment and it would have guaranteed that Alexa continued to wear her slippers just to get to me. By fawning all over her to the point of embarrassment (now EVERYONE knows about it), it's guaranteed she won't wear them again, at least for a while. I'll be sure to post as soon as I see them.