Blame it on the wind...

Ask any teacher, and they'll tell you that they dread the wind. I've heard every theory from negative electrons to sinuses to pollens as methamphetamines, but the fact is, when a wind crackles through through our smoggy little valley, getting a class to settle down is like putting a spur under a horse's saddle, sitting my ginormous ass square on the leather, and telling that beast to calm the fuck down. If I ever actually said, "Calm the fuck down", of course, I'd never get silence again. I just wish the standard forms of address-- "please be quiet", "please calm down", "you all understand what silence is, right?", "I'm waiting on you all", and "who do I need to send out next?" are simply not working.

I blame the wind on their skittishness, I blame the wind on my children's fractious unhappiness, and I blame the wind on the complete possum mad assholes who decided to go ten miles an hour for no plausible reason except the voices in their own distorted craniums TOLD THEM to go ten miles an hour today for three miles straight. (There was no accident. Why are they all going ten miles an hour when there's no goddamned accident?)

I blame the wind on my sudden, unhappy, unhealthy addiction to to three MacDonalds chocolate chip cookies that I absolutely must have every day.

I blame the wind on the four totally useless computers lodged in the back of my classroom, and the fact that we are expected to come up with lesson plans that involve these computers and then make sure kids are not touching the computers even though one of them has been officially 'on' all day. (I tell my students that these are 'virgin' computers and that they need to imagine a giant white 'chastity belt' surrounds them a foot away--and that one of them may be 'turned on', but it's still 'untouched.') I blame the wind for the fact that we tried this ten years before, and now we're being told not to get upset that our imput was neither solicited nor welcomed when we tried to explain that it didn't work then and things had not changed now.

I blame the wind on Ladybug's sudden will to wake up during unhappy moments at night and need fifteen minutes of sitting on us before she'll go back to sleep.

I blame the wind on my inability to laugh during my 6th period class when they totally disrespect me for the five zillionth time.

I blame the wind for the eight (count 'em!) broken light tubes in my ceiling, making my little portable room as dim as my 5th period students.

I blame the wind for my sudden urge to go tearing down the street screaming "I'm done I'm done I"m copying and shipping BITTER MOON today!!!!"

So maybe the wind is to blame--but not always for the bad stuff, now, right?

Oh yes--
I do not blame the wind on the Cave Troll's need to lecture me on not "stepping on the dog poo-poos in the garage"--but I thought I'd mention it because he does hand gestures and everything when he says it and it's a total crack up.