My air conditioner supposedly was fixed yesterday and when I got home, it was working fine enough for me to use a light blanket when I went to bed. But now, NOW, even though it blows air, there's nothing, NOTHING!
Anyway, I thought I'd make y'all laugh by sharing a story from one of my all time favorite books, 32 Third Graders and One Class Bunny by Phillip Done.
I used to laminate everything, absolutely everything -posters, prints, bookmarks, birthday certificates, awards, library passes, name tags, file folders, book jackets, real estate calendars. You name it, I laminated it. They called me the laminating king.
It got pretty bad. Once Cathy sent me a note with a question. Attached was a sticky note. It said, "Please just answer the question. Do not laminate."
But now I won't go near the machine. Not even close.
You see, one night I was in the staff room laminating my kids' art work for Back to School Night. It was late.
Now, you know what a laminating machine looks like of course. It's about three feet wide and sits on a table. It has two big rolls of plastic. You put whatever it is you want to laminate in on one side. The paper rolls through the two big rolls of laminating plastic. The plastic is hot and adheres to the paper. And your paper comes out on the other side all nicely laminated. It's great.
So there I was, carefully guiding each piece of artwork into the laminator, humming along, when all of a sudden, I felt this tug! I looked down. My tie was caught in the machine!
Immediately, I pulled back, but the tie was stuck. I tugged again. Still nothing. I jerked a third time. No luck. Meanwhile, I was still rolling into the machine. Oh my God, I thought. I am going to die!
I could see the headlines: "Teacher Flattend in Laminating Machine," "Teacher Suffocates to Death in Hot Plastic," "Teacher Becomes Art Project," "J.C. Penney Recalls One Million Ties."
I slammed off the switch.
I kept rolling.
"Crap!" I screamed.
It was the heat button.
I pushed another button.
I started rolling faster.
"Noooooo!" I yelled.
I reached under the table and fumbled for the cord. I found it.
Thank God!
I yanked it as hard as I could.
Suddenly everything stopped.
I sighed, closed my eyes, and rested my chin on the edge of the table. I didn't move for about ten seconds. My head was about five inches away from the roller.
Finally I lifted my head and looked around the room.
How the hell am I going to get out of this thing? I thought to myself. I couldn't undo my tie. The skinny part in the back had gone through too.
Then I spotted some scissors on the counter. I tried to reach them but they were too far away.
Damn! What was I going to do?
"Helloooooo," I said softly, "Helloooooo."
Nobody answered.
Oh my God, I thought. If I don't get out of here, the other teachers will find me here in the morning.
I yelled louder.
"Heeeeeelp! Heeeelp!" I screamed.
Finally, after about ten minutes of my screaming at the top of my lungs, Marion walked into the room. She covered her mouth.
"Don't laugh," I said, "Get me out of this thing!"
"How did you...?" she asked.
"Never mind! Just get me out of this," I said. "Grab those scissors over there and cut the tie."
"Cut it?"
"Cut it!" I screamed.
"But it's a nice tie," she said.
"I don't care about the stupid tie," I yelled. "Just get me out of here! And stop laughing! It's not funny."
Marion cut the tie and I was saved. That night I made her swear not to tell a soul. But Marion is not good at keeping secrets. For weeks afterward, strangers would pass me in the supermarket, at the gas station -everywhere -point to my tie, and start cracking up.
I called my dad and told him the whole story. He couldn't stop laughing either. Until I told him it was his tie.
Hope you enjoyed that! It is one of my all time favorites! Wish I could hear you laughing as you read it. I always laugh as I read it, which makes it hard when I'm reading it outloud to someone else.
Well, other than that, there's nothing else going on in my life, so adios!
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