Sub trauma...

If my socks look red, it’s because I spent the day with the ankle biters. I subbed at an elementary school. An entire elementary school. The teachers had meetings all day, but in shifts, so I subbed to cover their shifts. By the end of the day I had spent time in 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, and 1st grades, Kindergarten and as a lunch room monitor/meanie. Pretty much, not fun. However, luckily my ears and eyes were open to catch some of the following nuggets of greatness:

Completely unsolicited comment from a 3rd grade student: “Today in my lunch I have fruit. An orange and apple. And for drink I have juice. Mostly fruit. No sandwich.”
Me: “Uh, cool.”

Another 3rd grader was supposed to be working on her Thomas Edison crossword puzzle, but instead was speaking to another student in Spanish, hoping to get away with not working. This led to the following exchange:
Me: “Melanie, por que estas hablando? No necesitas hablar ahora, necesitas trabajar. Tienes mucha para hacer. Pero siempre habla, habla, habla. No mas hablando!”
Her: “You talk Spanish?”

Today was “Career Dress-Up Day,” complete with a parade of occupations through the hallways at the end of the day. At this point I was in the kindergarten class. When it came time for all the dressed-up children to go prepare for the parade, one plain-clothes child got in line. I asked what she was doing, and she said, “I’m a teacher.” I let her go.

Another one of those kindergarteners was impeccably dressed in a suit, shirt and tie. I noticed early in class that he continually bossed the other children around. Later, I was told that he had dressed as the President of the United States. Classic.

The moment I walked into the kindergarten class, this happened:
Boy: “Do you know my name?”
Me: “No.”
Boy: “It starts with an ‘n.’”
Me: “Still don’t know it.”
At this point he ran over and got a box of his work with NATHAN printed on it and said, “Can you read this?”
Me: “Yeah, it says Nathan.”
Immediately every other child started yelling: “Do you know my name?”
Me: “Listen! I don’t know any of your names!”
I didn't attempt to learn them either.

While we waited in the hallway, just before going into the cafeteria, one 2nd grader repeatedly asked me, “Do you have a burr?” I kept asking him what he meant and he kept saying, “In your hair. Do you have a burr?” Eventually, the kid next to him said, “You don’t make sense.” And that was that.

After lunch:
2nd grade boy: “Katie called me a maniac.”
Me: “I’m sorry.”
Him: “Katie called me a maniac.”
Me: “Yeah, I heard you. I said I was sorry.”
Apparently he was looking for something else from me, because he looked pretty dejected when he got back in line.

At least 5 times today: “Hey! You cutted me!” Good times with bad English.

A day like this is priceless. At least that’s what the district must think because the price they put on it was far too low.