It's Hard To Keep A Straight Face When....

1. Freshman Begin Giving Excuses

Last week, we had extremely warm weather. My last class comes to me straight from gym. They are always falling all over the place hot and sweaty and complaining that they are dying. Occasionally, I'll open a window to let in a breeze if it's nice outside. We had great weather last week, and I agreed to open one. Well, I have no problem with keeping the window open as long as it doesn't cause a disruption. But everything to a freshman is a disruption. I decided it was time to close the window, so I walked over and asked the student who was virtually leaning out of the window to return to his desk and close the window.
"No. NO! Please Ms. L! It helps with my anemia!"
It was difficult to keep a straight face while I explained that broccoli, not a breeze, would help with anemia.

2. Freshmen Talk
One student somehow managed to scrape her hand on the rug as she caught herself from falling out of her desk. 1)freshman are always falling off of furniture and 2) they need Band Aids for the smallest scratches. Naturally, she asked if she could go to the nurse. Naturally, I told her no. I did allow her to dampen a paper towel and wipe off the tiny scratch. She wiped her finger off, then launched the wet paper towel at a kid who'd made a comment. Of course, I told her to get up and throw it away properly. In the time it took her to get up and walk over to the napkin, another kid was trying to pick it up using his feet. The student adamantly refused to pick up the napkin claiming that she had no idea where his feet had been. "Man! For all I know he coulda been out there walking around in dog species!"
Species. I am fairly certain she meant to say feces. And, no, that time I did not keep a straight face.

3. Freshmen Provide Unquestionable Logic
Another student requested to go to the nurse (probably to get a Band Aid for some minuscule scratch). I told him that he could go but he'd need to wait on my to write him a pass.
"Ah nah. It's cool. I don't need a pass. I've got my Air Maxs on" and he pointed to his shoes. Dead serious. He truly didn't think he needed a pass because he could run down and back fast enough to avoid any administrators in the hallways. So I wrote a pass for him and his shoes.

4. The Admin Sings
I was sitting at the Admin's kitchen table not long ago. We'd just finished eating dinner and were both working on homework. He looked at me and said "You know the song they play at the beginning of our morning announcements at school?"
"Yeah. What about it?"
"Have you noticed that it's got the same beat as that new Black Eyed Peas song?"
"Oh yeah. I guess it does."
"Well, I can't get it out of my head. I've been singing that song all day!"
And he begins to sing....
"I'm a pea, I'm a pea, I'm a I'm a I'm a pea..."
He told me later that he could tell by the look on my face that he'd gotten the words completely wrong. He thought they meant "I'm a pea" like a Black Eyed Pea!
Now, when I hear that song on the radio, it's hard not to sing "I'm a pea" instead of "Imma be."