Should I Buy Her A Cape?

Teaching is not for the faint of heart. At all times, there are 22 people staring right at you. They are watching everything you do, critiquing everything you say. There is the constant worry that you will say something that is just flat out wrong or that you will contradict yourself. But those things ARE going to happen, so it is just best to practice laughing at yourself ahead of time. I hear these kind of experiences build character anyway.

But still, it is nerve wracking. Especially for a person like me who has a predisposition to anxiety and panic attacks. I seem to average one to two a semester, just for shits and giggles. I never really know what will bring them on (although, I have a theory it has something to do with that God awful florescent lighting). But they scare me. And, inevitably, I have a hard time walking back into class the next day. I mean, what if something worse happens???

What if I fall down?

This question that has plagued me during my entire teaching experience was answered last night by a fellow teacher as we swapped stories near a rowdy game of beer pong. If you fall down in class... you get back up. She knows this. Because every semester she has taught, she has fallen down in class. Not walking to class or leaving class. In class. For no apparent reason. With 22 people staring at her. And she just gets back up and carries on. Not just that day or the next, but she comes back the following semester. Knowing that, statistically, she is destined to fall. Literally. And she walks into that classroom anyway.

She looked embarrassed when she was telling me the story last night. And I know she thought my incredulous look really meant "oh you poor bastard." But really... it was a look of admiration. She looked in the face of one of my biggest fears, gave it a big "fuck you" and simply marched on.

She may be my hero.

Jesus and the Parable of the Oatmeal

At the tender age of 7, I took things pretty literally. Especially things I learned in Sunday School. I mean, if Jesus said to give your coat to someone that needs it, wouldn't I be expected to give my coat, even if I would be really, really cold? Fortunately, the days one needs a coat in South Florida can be counted on one hand, so the coat thing never really effected me.

But there was oatmeal, and that caused a big conflict.

My grandparents were visiting for a week during the summer. Mama was at work. I was up before Grandma, for some reason.

*knock* *knock*

After establishing who was at the door (one could never be too careful about child molesters or ax murders), I opened the door for my neighbor, Mrs. Jones (no seriously, that was her name). She wanted instant oatmeal for her kids, and she was out. Did we have any?

I ran to the pantry, shuffled through some things and came across the last packet of Maple & Brown Sugar Quaker Instant Oatmeal. Proud of my self-sufficiency, I ran to the door and gave her the packet. We had just learned about giving in Sunday School (you know, "Whatsoever you do to the least of these..."), so I felt as pleased as if I had handed the packet of oatmeal to Jesus Christ Himself.

Know who was not as pleased? My Southern Baptist grandmother.

"Kendra! You gave away the last packet of oatmeal?" was the rather hostile response I received to my exuberant retelling of my giving oatmeal to Jesus (or Mrs. Jones, whatever). Please note that she was not looking for said oatmeal. I was just telling her the story.

"What if Granddaddy wanted that oatmeal for breakfast?!"

"He could have toast," I offered. Clearly she wasn't getting the Jesus giving connection that I was trying to explain to her.

"Family comes first, before anything else. Never give away anything without checking with all your family first."

So went my first lesson that, when it comes to Jesus, people love the stories. It is the practice that seems to throw a wrench in it all.

I Will Have the Bacon Slam (Hold the Bacon)

I think it's funny that people seem genuinely thrown for a loop when I tell them I don't eat meat.* I mean, show some love for a vegetable or two. Somehow my world of food seems so dim and narrow to them, barely worth navigating at all.

No BACON at breakfast?
No burgers on the grill?
What in the world do you eat for Thanksgiving, they ask?

Look, all that really matters to me is that I have found french fries to be lovely conduits for wing sauce. Life is meaningless without wing sauce. And there are McDonald's cheeseburgers with no meat (think of the cheeseburger as a unit. All the ingredients add up to one taste; you can't really taste the ingredients separately. Remove the meat, no harm, no foul.) Improvisation, not deprivation is what I say.

I am not that strange. Well, not for my food choices at least.

*I eat fish. But meat eaters don't really consider fish meat at all. I think only proper vegetarians consider fish meat.