We went to Hawaii once. I didn’t much like it, mainly because of the palm trees. Shaking in the sea breeze each night, the palm tree branches click their fronds, rendering the sound made by a shrike’s metal claws, demons surrounding me like bettors at a cock fight. Frozen by the satanic rattle, I would watch as slug armies then stormed the patio, surrounding me in a sea of spineless malevolence. They traveled on log rides of slime, leaving behind multi-hued tracks. Entwined further yet by the tightening strands, I would wonder what the point of it all was.
Possibly, I would think, the slugs are an alien life form stranded here millions of years ago, now sending a Vonneguttian SOS in slime trail code to their home planet, pleading for a rescue slug spaceship. If true, it was going to be awhile. Or, could it be an allegory for professional development, much like the railroad speech is an allegory for whatever it’s supposed to be an allegory for? Then again, perhaps the slugs were just doing it. Why would they, you ask? I can’t provide an answer for that, as it would break my rule of not attempting to understand why someone or something has just done something that’s totally irrational. After all, they’re irrational, right?
For example, one of our school bus drivers was closing up her bus one night when there was a knock on the door. There was a man standing there who asked her if she would leave the bus unlocked that night. She asked him why on earth she would want to do this. He told her his wife fantasized about making love on a yellow school bus and that he was trying to set it up. If you tried to get inside this guy’s head, you’d wonder why he isn’t worried about his wife and this school bus thing. You’d wonder why he thought this was just the regular type of thing you ask school bus drivers, why he didn’t consider the mess to clean up in the morning before the kids got on, and why shouldn’t there be at least fifty bucks involved.
Discussing irrational people brings me to the “Nutty Parent Letters.”
Dear Mr. Dunker, I would like to apologize for my atrocious behaviour yesterday, as I had no right to approach Sapphire and say what I said. I have since spoken with my daughter and she told me that some of the things she has been telling me were made up because she was jealous of Sapphire. Colorado also told me that Sapphire teasing her about her lunch, and about her pantie’s everyday is true. I still feel strongly about the fact that what my daughter eats for lunch, or what pantie’s she wears is really none of Sapphires business and should stay that way. I have faith that you will take care of this issue. “To air is human, but real growth comes from awareness and change.”
Sincerely in Gods Grace,
(Colorado’s mother)
You can see elements of the Nutty Parent Letter genre above. There is the attempt to draw you into their imaginary universe. There is the horrible punctuation, spelling and use of apostrophes. She’s obviously a beginner, although the God reference shows real promise. She hasn’t begun misusing quotation marks and parentheses. She somehow managed to spell “atrocious” correctly.
Dear Miss Joanie Smith, I would like to apologize for any miss understandings that may have been arisen because of my conversations with Mr. Dunker yesterday. To say I was upset would be an understatement. I was not only upset on Wednesday that I was not notified (only notice sent home) or consulted on this matter, but when Michael spent recess Thursday in the office doing nothing (chewing and picking). I was not in any way in agreement with Mr. Dunkers form of discipline (which has been described to me as pure “punishment” in Michael’s case. He (Michael) put himself in a bad situation, one he needs to be aware of because he often “touches” things harder (my note here - he had punched a girl in the face and spent recess in the office) than he means to (proprioceptive sense), he needs to make decisions for himself and not just follow the crowd (which he heard again Monday for not thinking for himself and standing up for himself regarding time in the office). We prepared for Thursday, we put on his weighted vest, we did extra proprioceptive activities in the morning, I drove him to school (to avoid the hectic 55 min bus ride in the morning), and we talked about how he would handle himself for the day. That night out of the blue he told his dad it was a good thing he had music class that day to help balance him. (blowing, such as a recorder, is one of the better forms of sensory relieving output). I have lots of information I would love to “weed” through with somebody but I don’t believe that is entirely your responsibilities. I want him to “feel” good in his body (proper sensory integration) and to learn to regulate himself appropriately. It seems like all he has time for some nights is “work, ” and then hopefully we can work on his proprioceptive dysfunction and his sensory balance and printing before he goes to bed. Grade 2 is too young to be going to school all day and doing homework all night and I know we all “agree” on that. He really enjoy the museum, but it was “different” with lots of things to deal with, when your senses sometimes betray you… he did great for the day I am so proud of him and promptly had a meltdown about “nothing” as soon as he saw me (relieving internal stress). And on top of all this my doctor has suggested that I go see a pediatrician for more opinions (which I need like a whole in the head) I have an appointment but not of course till April) to go over again everything with someone else.
p.s. Michaels throat is soar again and he is just to tired I don’t know what to think.
The other day, because Joanie was on her coffee break, I had to answer the phone. There was a lady crying on the other end. She wanted to arrange an interview for the next day. I tried to get her to tell me what was bothering her. Between blubbers, she asked why I hadn’t let anybody know about the girl with the cigarette lighter in school. I told her the girl had a proprioreceptive dysfunction and that I had confiscated her lighter. Next she got to the main point of her phone call. She wanted to know why I had been covering up the story about the disabled boy molesting little girls in the bathroom. “You know the little boy with the oxygen tank who is molesting girls in the washroom, ” she finally got out.
Here’s where I broke my rule about irrational people. There were just too many things about her story that I couldn’t get my head around. First, she had been worrying about the molestations for two days, and it was only because she was crying on the phone that I had asked her what was wrong and she had not waited yet another day to meet with me and explain her problem. This would have meant another torturous night fretting about this little disabled kid on an oxygen tank with all of the tubes, lumbering after what would have to be a group of astoundingly slow-witted girls who have either gone into the boys’ washroom by mistake or have gone into the girls’ washroom not noticing the disabled boy with the oxygen tank and even then are not swift of foot enough to escape. Combine this with the fact that we don’t actually have a kid on an oxygen tank attending the school and you really have to wonder.
These irrational thoughts leave slime trails glistening in your mind. What gives people the right to think that they can pick on poor little kids dragging around oxygen tanks anyways?
I left the cigarette lighter in my jacket pocket.