Now THAT'S dedication!

We've been studying flowers (pollination and all that) in class and let me tell you, it's been hell on the allergies. Remind me next year not to pick flowers with so much pollen. Unfortunately, it caused more serious reactions than just a few sneezes and stuffy noses.

They actually had to call 911 for one of my girls (she's ok now).

We'd been handling the flowers for about 15 minutes when Anna comes up to my desk, huffing and puffing like a five-pack-a-day smoker.

"Can I go to the office?" she wheezes at me.

Of course I'm going to let her go to the office: the girl's got something seriously wrong with her. 20 minutes pass. Then I get a phone call.

"Can you send down Anna's stuff to the office? Her mom's coming to pick her up."

Like wildfire, word passes around the school that there's an ambulance in the parking lot (how the hell does word pass that fast when everyone's in class?). Sure enough, it's for poor Anna, who's still wheezing in the office. But despite her sure-to-be-impending-demise due to a pollen allergy, she manages to convince her mother that she needs to get her homework before she leaves school.

So mom drops Anna off at her locker and stops by the language arts teacher to get the homework. How could she know that Anna would go charging back in my classroom to get the math homework?

I turn around (I'm standing 2 feet away from a large bouquet of flowers, mind you) and there's Anna, gasping something about the math homework. It takes a moment for me to realize just who I'm looking at and why I shouldn't be.

Aw, shit....

At this point, mom realizes where Anna is. She rushes in to my room and starts dragging Anna out of the room by her arm. Anna, who I would swear had barely enough air to stand, drags mom back into my room, whistling angrily the whole way about the math homework like a deranged tea kettle! Finally, I manage to lead Anna out into the hall (as the dispenser of math homework, she has to follow me) and explain to her that she has to stay in the hall: I will happily bring her the math homework if she will just keep breathing until I get back.

Thus, with the math homework in hand, Anna triumphantly leads a weary mom back down the hall and out of the school. I really think that girl would have killed herself to get that assignment.

Now that is true dedication.