As If You Didn't Have Enough Reason To Worry About Your Child's Public School...

I've had some pretty horrible subs. Scary subs, angry subs, incompetent subs, non-English-speaking subs...You name it, I've probably had one of those people in my classroom babysitting my kids.

Because of that, I always plan when I'm going to be out so I can obtain a good sub before I'm going to be out. Rarely do I call in the night before or something. Well, I had a 'business day' Thursday, where I was on campus but not in my room and I completely forgot that I needed to get a sub. And, of course, when I remembered, all the good standbys were spoken for.

The sub who accepted my job came to introduce himself last week on Tuesday. I was impressed with the fact that he was wearing a suit, spoke very good English, had a very old "Associate Teacher" badge (which meant he'd been with the district a long time), and was cordial enough to come meet me. I was totally confident that dude was going to do a great job.

Then, Thursday morning, the guy came in real early and sat down in my room and wouldn't stop talking. I was trying to write the instructions on the board and he just kept going on about his life, his teaching experience, which schools he's been to before, and on and on. I explained about my 1st period being rough and how the day gets better as it goes on. But he seemed to know what was going on and how to handle these kids.

So imagine my shock and surprise when I began realizing everything that went wrong. I'll even tell this in the order in which I learned it.

Thursday at 6th period, I called my room to tell this guy that I was going to come down at 2:05 to walk my kids to the gym for the pep rally and that he got to go home a little early and miss the buses. I get to my room at 2:06 (they aren't supposed to be in the gym until 2:10 and it backs up to my room so it's a short short walk), and there is no one in my classroom. A kid who was supposed to be in my class right then was wandering the hall and said, "Oh, he took them to the gym." I was so pissed that I didn't even realize the kid was skipping until later!

After the pep rally, I had kids coming in for tutoring (9, but only 2 showed), and that's when I realized that my ISN (interactive student notebook) was missing from my desk. We have to have a sample notebook for the students to use as a model, so I created one with drawings and everything, with all the handouts and all, and I keep it on my desk. When kids are done with their classwork, they can come get my ISN and make sure theirs is all up to date and in order. I specifically told the sub that no one should be touching that notebook, because they should be doing the assignment on the board and it would take more than one class period. So if he let someone borrow it during the period and they accidentally walked out with it, he was going against my instructions anyway. But it was gone. Poof. Deleted from my life. Not only did I have some really good sketches in it, but my other kids need it! So I was pissed. It never would have happened if I was there - I assure you that. In all my years of teaching, no one has ever stolen anything from me - not so much as a PEN. But, leave one incompetent "associate teacher" in the room...

Yesterday, I totally reamed 1st period's ass because they did absolutely nothing in class yesterday. It's not unusual for that to happen, even with me there, but some of them didn't even have the directions copied down. Second period, same deal. Not so normal for them. One of them said, "Well, it was hard to concentrate! The sub wouldn't stop talking." Third period - really good kids - nothing done. At this point, I'm like, "WTF?!" So I asked the kids (after my lecture about being someone being a thief and how I wasn't creating a new sample) exactly what the problem was. They said he wouldn't stop talking, that he was telling jokes the whole time, and one girl almost started to cry.

"What's wrong, hon?" I asked.

"The substitute. My mom wants me to make a formal complaint. He said some things."

Turns out he said that she looked like the kind of girl who will get a little older and get tattoos all over her ass. First off, I'm not sure why they were even talking about tattoos, but the rest of that was totally inappropriate.
He also made personal attacks on 2 of my other girls. They were in different periods.

I found out he'd been telling inappropriate jokes as well. He told a joke about boys "playing in the fountain with bubbles." The problem was that bubbles was a girl, and not of the soapy kind. He told three jokes that were offensive towards Hispanics. I mean, I wouldn't even tell those jokes to my kids, and I have established relationships with them - this guy doesn't know them at all.

That was kind of the end of it. That sealed the deal.

So I go off and get the Substitute Report Form and began filling it out in anger. Then I realized that it would hold more weight if the offended girls wrote their statements and I attached them. So I did that. I also mentioned that my ISN is now AWOL. I didn't accuse him of taking it, I just said that the fact someone was able to swipe it off my desk is an indication that he wasn't monitoring the students.

And that was my Friday. I'm afraid this guy's going to retaliate against me because he's been with the district for so many years. I can just see the Director of Substitute Services getting that evaluation and going, "Pshaw! I've known Harry for YEARS! He'd never do such a thing." I can't imagine that they would toss the evaluation, because it's on NCR and several people get copies, but if he's been subbing for our district for decades, I doubt they'll care what I have to say. There is NO way he hasn't done this before. In fact, I had 3 students - 1 in 5th period and 2 in 7th period say that they remember him from middle school and he was the same way then, telling the same dirty jokes.

I can't believe I would be the only person to have reported this in all this time. The only possible explanation for that is that I really don't think most teachers ask their kids how things went with the sub. I always ask mine, and I also ask them if they liked the sub. If they like them AND they got the classwork done, they go on my "preferred sub" list. I also know that a lot of teachers seem to forget that their students are people with feelings, opinions, and preferences. So perhaps they never asked their kids' opinions about how things went, so the kids never got the opportunity to express their insecurities.

Not only have I had to write up a guy who was very nice to me in the beginning - and I hate to write up people who are nice, but damn, dude...who would ever think it's okay to do that?! - but now my kids are a day behind in their studies because this fucker couldn't adhere to my lesson plan. Not only that, but their reading is broken up by a weekend now and it's going to take even more time for them to go back and refresh their memories, rather than getting it all done on Thursday and Friday. Grr.

Whose Job Is It To Protect You?

Last night's events prove one thing to me: Personal protection is a matter of self-reliance. You cannot count on any agency or anyone else to keep you and your family safe. That means that it's something you'll have to take into your own hands - and be prepared to perform in whatever capacity is required to protect yourself and your family and, to a lesser extent, your property.

I live in Texas. This is a wonderful state for so many reasons, but my favorite reason is that we have been given the privilege of defending ourselves by carrying a concealed weapon. But even if you are for some reason unable to qualify for that license, you always have the right to protect your homestead. Some states call it the Castle Doctrine and, since I live in a suburb of a major city that's overrun with criminals (many of whom are armed or illegals), I've taken many steps to ensure my own safety.

I've grown up in the gun culture. I was inundated with gun safety classes and principles as long as I can remember. I got my first rifle before I could ride a bike. My father was such a stickler for safety that, even now as an adult, I'm still sometimes uncomfortable picking up another person's gun to look at it or shoot it - even with their permission. I keep every one of my guns locked up in a gun safe (2 pantry-sized, bolted to the floor, with combo and key locks) unless I'm home. Then, I always have a shotgun and handgun nearby. That idea started from living in extremely bad neighborhoods most of my life. Later, it was to protect myself from a crazy estranged husband. In fact, I even supplemented that paranoia by getting a security system, but I still arm myself even when it's set. Last night is a very good reason for why I do that...

The Boy is gone on a hog hunting trip. It's a boy's deal, so I wasn't invited. Ehh, whatever. I really dislike hogs, anyway. So I spent the evening cleaning my house from top to bottom. I was cranking the satellite radio on the TV and sweating up a storm. What an exciting life I lead, right? A Friday night with my boyfriend out of town and I'm at home, with a fucking dustpan in my hand. Slow down, Stillie...you're living too fast. But I digress. (i do that a lot, don't i?)

I'd set the alarm when I'd quit running in and out of the house, taking trash to the can. I usually bypass the door I use to let the dogs out, so that I don't wake up at 3am, let them out, and then run across the house like a fool, trying to disarm the alarm before it goes off. But I always have it armed when I'm in for good, regardless.

At about 11:30, I decided to go upstairs to take a shower and wash my hair (we're trying to remodel the master bath, so i'm stuck in the guest bath until that's completed). There were some other personal needs I needed to attend to, so I filled the tub with about 4" of water and climbed in. Then, I had this weird thought that I needed to grab the house phone instead of just my cell, and that I should take the pistol with me too. So I went back downstairs and got those. When I returned upstairs, I shut the bathroom door for some reason, and set to the task of tidying up myself.

I was about 10 minutes into it when I heard my boy Aussie barking ferociously - over the music, over the vent - and it rattled me a little. He barks at people only, and it's usually just a 'hey, get off my lawn' kind of bark. This was something I'd only heard from him three times before: once when he attacked my cousin's boyfriend and then once when he knocked me down to get to the satellite installer - and once a few hours before when The Boy came back into the house with a cap on. So I immediately thought someone was either at the door (my doorbell is temperamental), or something was going down.

The Boy's friend drove here and they took Boy's truck to the ranch, so the friend's truck is parked on the street just outside of my house. It's a truck that has a rather high incidence of being stolen, so that was my first thought...that someone was out there trying to get in the truck or that someone was just outside antagonizing Boy Dog. With a hat on. He really seems to hate people with hats.

And that's when the house alarm went off.

I immediately jumped out of the tub and wrapped up in a towel. Then I locked the door and dialed the police first and racked the slide on the .40 Glock next. I could still hear Boy Dog barking, even over the alarm, which really kind of freaked me out even more. But the phone kept ringing and ringing, and the police department never picked up. WTF?! I knew I could call the sheriff, but I didn't have the number programmed in my phone.

Why didn't I just call 9-1-1, you ask? Because, in my head, 9-1-1 is for life or death situations where you can't handle things on your own (as right or as wrong as that may be), and I knew that I could handle my situation. I just wanted some backup, pretty damned quickly! LOL! So, at that point, I had it in my head that I was on my own, and it was up to me to defend myself.

Here's the thing: There was no way anyone could not know I was home. I had several lights on inside and the radio was on. If anyone had been watching for any time at all, they would have seen the upstairs light go on, too. If someone is willing to break into a house when they know for a fact someone is home, they're typically not there just for the electronics and jewelry. I was honestly pretty fucking scared that they were there to do physical and emotional damage to me - if they even stayed in the house after the alarm went off.

So, after I resigned to the fact that I was alone on this one, I opened the bathroom door and looked down the stairs - straight to the fishing rod rack where I keep the shotgun leaned while I'm home. It was still there, which meant if there was someone inside the house, they weren't going to shoot me with my own shotgun at least. If it hadn't been there, I probably would have either climbed out an upstairs window and hung out on the roof, or just barricaded myself in the bathroom and called 9-1-1 from the landline, so they'd have the address for sure, in case something happened to me.

My girl Aussie had run up the stairs and was looking for me, but I could still hear Boy Dog near the front of the house, barking intermittently. I took that as a positive sign, because if someone had left the door open, Boy Dog would have followed them right out. So, there I was, like a horror movie, a blond woman cautiously walking around my house in nothing but a towel, with a half-shaved cooch because I got interrupted, and a cell phone in one hand and a Glock in the other. When I'd cleared the downstairs, I turned off the alarm and checked the code. It was a glass break sensor in the kitchen that had been tripped.

I did a quick scan of the kitchen and everything looked intact, so I went into the bedroom and got dressed. I was still waiting on ADT to call. It sure did seem like a long time. When I checked my phone, it HAD been a long time! If I'm waiting on ADT to call me and, if that failed, to call the cops, then something was going terribly awry.

So, I dragged out the phone book and looked up my county sheriff's number. I called them and they contacted my city police and said they'd send someone over.

Do you see now how there were a series of bizarre coincidences that could have left me high and dry and possibly dead?

I called The Boy to see if ADT had called him first, since he's listed on the immediate contact list. He was freaked out, of course, but said nobody had called him at all. Then he got really, really mad, because we've had problem after problem with ADT since this whole thing started. We thought that it was all sorted out, but apparently not. I told him I'd handle everything and he needed to go back to sleep.

The cops showed up within 2 minutes of my hanging up with the sheriff's office (which is now programmed into my phone, btw). I explained what had happened, and said that I'd just feel better if they made a few extra patrols down my street. He said he'd check the bayou behind my house, just in case, and he said he had no idea why the city police number wasn't working. He said that if no one is at dispatch, they have to manually forward it to the county, and that someone must have forgotten to do that. Niiice.

I went outside this morning and there are some smooshed places in the flower beds in front of my kitchen windows. I'm not saying that someone was going to break in, but that's what it looks like to me. I believe that it was a combination of the dog and the alarm that deterred them (i can't believe all my outside lights, alarm signs, and 'beware of dog' signs didn't do it in the first place). I'm not saying, either, that I would have been viciously raped and murdered if I someone had gotten in and then stayed in the house, but I always assume the worst - and prepare for it.

In my mind, I was calm, and fully prepared to kill whoever it was that had illegally entered my home. I would hate to have to take another person's life, but if they were still determined after all the warnings, there's no way I'm going to say, "Hey, you! Get out of my house!" Fuck. No. Muthafukka's gonna die. I've taken many classes and trainings and I've fully thought through every possible scenario of a home invasion. I had no idea which situation I was being put into, but I was ready for it. I'm extremely proud of myself for the way I handled it. I even chose to take the Glock upstairs with me instead of my .45 Combat Commander because I remember thinking, "If anything happens and I have to take someone's life with this gun, the cops are going to take it as evidence until I've been no-billed, and I don't want them to have one of my collector-type pistols. (Expensive guns have, historically, had a way of disappearing from our county's evidence room)" I mean, this isn't a knee-jerk reaction kind of blind fear and panic situation, here.

Honestly, I didn't even get truly unnerved until after it was all over, the cops were gone, the phone calls were all made, and I trying to decide about whether or not to get back in the tub and finish what I was doing, and wash my hair and everything. And I didn't sleep worth a shit...every little sound woke me up, but I didn't want to turn on the white noise generator because I needed to hear if something happened. Rationally, I know there's little chance an intruder would return to a place he'd been run off from, but try telling my scared little girl irrational part!

The moral of this story is this: You may have an excellent police force. But what if you can't get them? What if your phone dies on you (like mine did right there at the end) or what if your criminal cuts your lines? You may have a fancy alarm system, but what if there's some weird electronic fluke and the monitoring company never even registers that the alarm tripped, so they don't call you or the cops? If they don't know, the cops will never know. Even worse that than, what if you just forget to set it altogether?! What about your entry settings? Do you have it set for a 60-second entry delay? That gives a criminal a full minute to get deep into your home before the alarm actually activates. What if you happen to become a victim of someone who is crazy enough or deaf enough or just determined enough to not give a flying fuck about that loud alarm and enters your house anyway? Do you have what it takes to protect yourself and your family?

People have fire drills all the time. Emergency management agencies do dry runs of all types of emergency situations. Families are told to practice fire drills and 'safe meeting point' runs. Families are reminded to always have a backup plan because the first one may not work. No one ever tells you to practice what to do in case you're caught by surprise by a home invader or something like that. I feel incredibly lucky that I not only got to practice this, but that it was indeed only a practice and that I didn't have to assert my rights as a homeowner with the second amendment backing my ass up. I have no problem with killing someone if they invade my home, but I'd really rather never have to do it...
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I Got Shot Today and My Secret Double Life

I got my flu shot today. I'm not even really sure why. Well, I mean, I know why: It was free as long as you had my insurance. But I don't typically let people I don't know shove a needle into my softness and inject me with an illness.

First off, I never get the flu. I have a fantastic immune system. My mother insists it was all those years I spent, chewing my fingernails and rarely washing my hands. She always called me "a carrier," because I never got sick although all those around me did. I had a 24-hour bug once (i always remember when i had a pukey illness, because i am scared to death of vomiting), and I did get the flu when I was in the hospital for a broken wrist. I also came away with chicken pox. Hospitals are breeding grounds for nastiness of all varieties, apparently. But I digress.

Secondly, the flu now comes in so many strains and the kind that morph and change and become resistant after one trip around the globe that, honestly, I fail to see how a shot can protect people from it. This was not the H1N1 vaccine which, I've been told, won't be available until November. Either way, I don't think I'm going to get it. If it's free, I'll consider it, but...I don't know. I prefer things that are tried and true, tested by time. Ooh! Alliteration!

So, I'm a huge baby when it comes to shots. There's no explaining it. I can't remember ever being injured by a nurse or orderly, so I'm not sure what my issue is. I have piercings all over my body. I have multiple tattoos. Needles and I...we're *like this,* so why am I afraid of a tiny gauge vaccination needle? For God's sake, when they pierced my tongue, they used a huge hollow needle. It cored out my tongue. It removed that material. And yet I didn't have a problem with that. By the way...never let your piercer explain a procedure before the actual process. Bad idea. Really.

My middle name should be Irrational.. Yep. "Hi! I'm Still Irrational Broken." Oh, Lord. That almost makes sense.


Today, I was watching The Boy walk around the house. I just keep thinking, "Who the fuck have I become?! Whose life am I actually living?! This isn't me!" Trying to fit The Boy into the context of my life as a whole isn't working. I mean, he's fully integrated into my life - everyone knows about him, he has a really good relationship with my dad, and so forth - but it's like it's not real or something. Like, he's playing a role in a movie or something in which I'm starring, and it's going to end at some point. Then everything will go back to normal.

Except I'm not sure what my normal is. If I don't feel like this is me - that I'm living my own life - then exactly what should I be doing?! I mean, I created this disaster. If I'm dissatisfied, I'm the only one to blame for that. But I'm not angry about it, I just feel like none of this is real. Like it's all some weird kind of dream about leading a calm, suburban, 'normal' life, and I am at some point going to wake up and be simultaneously disappointed and relieved.

Maybe this isn't a midlife crisis thing, or a turning-point-in-my-life kind of thing. Maybe it's a you-really-need-to-see-a-professional kind of thing. Really. I mean, isn't there like, a bona fide disorder for these kinds of delusions, or something?

At one point, I realized I needed an education and I had to go back to school. I toyed around with several careers before settling on being an educator. There were two main reasons for that decision: job security, and my passion for the humanities, reading literature in specific. Teacher School filled my head with all these notions of what it would be like. I knew that it was probably somewhat of an inflated truth, something sugar-coated and dressed up all pretty with very red lipstick on to cover up the slightly sour, shabby, yellow-toothed reality of it. I knew it wasn't going to be idyllic. But I didn't think it would be like this, either.

And somewhere along the way, in the pursuit of a career, housing, a husband, and the niceties that a stable career and good credit will get you, I lost myself. I completely, totally, 100% lost myself. I have a big house, a new truck, a stable job, a bastard of an ex-husband, and the wrecked credit to match...and I hate it. I hate the responsibility, the normalcy. It's National Night Out tonight and all my neighbors (old enough to be my parents, btw) are all sitting out on their driveways with peach-flavored iced tea (with real peach slices!), or tall boys of beer, lawn chairs pulled into a big horseshoe shape, open to the street. Our police force is going around, lights all strobey and blinding, attracting all the mosquito-bitten neighborhood kids who are sticky with sweat in the post-summer swelter. By 10:00 pm, everyone will go inside (remember the noise ordinance!), driveways abandoned, lawn chairs hung back up on the hooks on the garage wall. The neighborhood streets will be empty, save for the one stray cat no one has the heart to off with a silenced .22 rifle.

I'm betting I'm the only one who thinks about killing the neighborhood stray cats, aren't I? Whatever. Back to the 10 pm closedown.

It's times like those, when I'm lying in bed (at 10:05 pm because I have to be up so early), trying to fall asleep, when I hear nothing but the far-off rumble of the trains running along Highway Alternate 90 that I ask myself, "How the fuck did I get here?"

There is no answer, except the wind whispering through the Norman Rockwell trees, and it seems to be saying, "Who knows...who knows..."
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