#cat got boogers on my shirt ……. you are so baby and yet you put booger snot on my shirt ……… fucked up my nice jeans bc of ur biscuits too ..

[solcarow]

.

[katrinawritesthings]

Taemin-centric; spoopy; pg

Halloween party but they're all like magical Monster creatures :-)

very light Gore warning for the beginning because key is a headless babe like in mttm

"Oh, yeah," Jonghyun says, popping up straight. "Costume." he lets go of Taemin to rummage around in his hoodie pocket. He pulls out a cat ear headband, white and sparkly, and puts it on so the kitty ears settle just in front of his own werewolf ears. "Meow," he says mischievously. Then he's up and halfway across the backyard before Taemin finishes laughing. 

The whimpers from out back are getting louder so it's with purpose that Taemin is making his way through the house. 

At the same time, when he passes the bathroom and glances in, what he sees in there makes his stomach turn so it's with a new, different purpose that he stops in his tracks and lurches back to do a double-take.

It's just as he thought; Key is in there, standing in front of the mirror, but he's not even looking in it. Instead, he has his head off and is holding it with his left hand to face his neck hole and with his right hand is digging around in there. He's poking around his arteries, digging around his bones, sticking his finger down his throat hole, frowning all the while. there's blood under his nails and Taemin cannot stop the noise of disgust that comes from him.

 "Stop that, it's fucking nasty," he snaps. He walks forward and snatches Key's head away from his body, ignoring his shout and pushing away his grabby hands. He holds up Key in front of him with both hands, frowning at him. "You can't just fucking root around in your own neck hole, you know you get scabs and infections and shit, it's gross." 

"Fuck off, put me down," Key snaps back, a guilty blush covering his nose. His body's hands keep trying to grab him away but Taemin twists and faces the corner to frown at him some more. "At least I don't eat what I pick off, like you do with your boogers, and your eye crusties, and your pimple gunk, and your hair follicles, and your dick smegma." 

"Yeah, well," Taemin says, not nearly as offended as Key wants him to be, "how does it feel to have me call you gross?" he raises his eyebrows, tilts his head expectantly. Key just scowls, glaring up at him, hands grabbing loosely at the back of his shirt. Then he pouts and looks down at the floor.

"Bad," he mumbles. Taemin snorts. Bad indeed. He turns and puts Key's head back onto his body. Key,  eyes narrowed, pops his head right back off and puts it on the counter.

 "I'm putting on my costume," he says. Then, before Taemin can ask what that costume is, he switches from grumpy to concerned almost like a light switch and adds, "Can you go help Jonghyunnie? You know it's harder when it's cloudy. " 

 Taemin gasps loudly; that's right, he had a purpose before he walked past the bathroom. Mumbling, "You made me forget," he heads out of the bathroom and back onto his original quest to the yard.

Jonghyun is still out there, still whimpering. He's sitting between his ankles in his favorite patch of flowers, pouting up at the cloudy sky. He isn't twitching so much as shuddering harshly every couple of seconds and when Taemin gently crouches down and touches his shoulder, he whips around with a snarl, mouth half full of fangs bared, eyebrows a deep v before he realizes and relaxes, a little. 

"You okay, puppy?" Taemin asks. Jonghyun just whines back, reaching for Taemin’s hand to hold. Taemin makes comforting noises, squeezing him lightly. He knows. It's hard enough transforming on a normal full moon, but when it's cloudy, it takes forever to finally start. "You look cute," he says quietly, and he means it. He's wearing what he wants to wear after he changes and the outfit is almost comically big on him, ripped jeans baggier than the 90s and sleeveless hoodie long and loose like a little dress. 

"Thanks," Jonghyun pouts back. "Homophobic that the science nerds haven't found a way to make this–– not suck yet." He interrupts himself mid-sentence with a harsh, violent sounding noise somewhere between a snarl and a snort. Against his palm, Taemin can feel Jonghyun’s nails turning into claws. He glances up; the clouds are thinning, a little bit, so the big lesbian in the sky is visible as a pale fuzzy circle, a few flashes coming in here and there. 

 He squeezes Jonghyun’s hand with both of his, rubbing over the front and back, bringing it to his mouth to kiss once. Jonghyun doesn't really like to be talked to during his transformations. It distracts him when he's trying to just focus on getting it done and over with as quickly as possible. Taemin just keeps him company, is just there for him to be with while he goes through it. 

It takes a while, a bunch of tiny little changes every time the moon flashes free of the clouds, Jonghyun whimpering and pouting the entire time. Thankfully, Taemin has been following a large gap in the clouds and before super duper long, it passes over the moon. As soon as that starts, Jonghyun starts shuddering into overdrive. 

"Ooooohhhhhh, jeez, oh, okay, oh jeez, it's starting. Okay. Okay. Gosh. Fuck. Okay. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck––" 

He keeps going, growling out the curses through gritted teeth until they become actual growls. They rip through his throat with every breath, rough and deep, Rumble through his growing fangs, growing bones, muscle, limbs, tail, the elongating of his face into a snout and muzzle, the ears sprouting out of his head, dark brown fur growing all over him, his hand squeezing Taemin’s so hard it hurts, and then, as suddenly is it all started, it's over. 

Jonghyun shivers, shaking himself all out, stray fur poofing out into the air and floating away. Then he turns to Taemin with a lazy wolf grin and nuzzles against his cheek.

"Thanks, baby," he sighs, a breath of relief. Taemin hugs him back, ruffling both hands through the fur at the scruff of his neck and scritching behind his ears. He murmurs little praises as he does it, little good boys and you’re so fluffy, yes you ares. 

 Of course Jonghyun laps it all up, fluffy tail beating the dirt, heart beating hard and fast right next to Taemin's. Taemin is sure that he had something else to do tonight, but he's also sure that it can wait a little bit. In fact, he's positive that it can wait all the way up until Key knocks on the back door frame to get their attention and calls out, "Hey, time to go, Minho is here." 

Right, yeah, that's what it was. The party.

"Oh, yeah," Jonghyun says, popping up straight. "Costume." he lets go of Taemin to rummage around in his hoodie pocket. He pulls out a cat ear headband, white and sparkly, and puts it on so the kitty ears settle just in front of his own werewolf ears. "Meow," he says mischievously. Then he's up and halfway across the backyard before Taemin finishes laughing. 

Taemin picks himself up, brushes dirt off of his jeans, and makes his way back inside too. The walk back is enough time to take in Key's costume; he's taken a teddy bear, cut its head off, and then put the teddy bear head on top of his neck hole and his head on top of the teddy bear neck hole. It's a real good combination of cute and creepy. Jonghyun pats the teddy bear head as he passes and Taemin pats the Key head as he follows, just to be a nuisance. 

Over at the front of the house, Minho is waiting at the door, and dressed normally except for a pair of round black glasses. Maybe he's going to throw on some wizard robes later or something. Taemin reaches out to hold his hand for a second as Jonghyun gives him the biggest, snuggliest hug in the universe. He also waves at Minho in his car on the street, grinning when he waves back.

"You do know that I didn't volunteer to help you and Jinki set up, right, that was only Key?" he asks. He just wants to make sure. He's taking the free ride to the party, but just because he's going to be there early it doesn't mean he agreed to any labor.

"God," Minho mutters, rolling his eyes and shaking his head. "Shut up," He says, tugging on Taemin's wrist to pull him to the car. Taemin smirks, bumping him with his hip so he stumbles a little. 

Key is in shotgun, Jonghyun behind him, so Taemin takes the seat behind Minho and settles in. Buckling himself up, he watches as Minho opens the driver side door for Minho and Minho sits down on top of Minho, both of them merging into one human again. He starts the car, Key starts playing with his radio, and Jonghyun immediately rolls down his window so he can lean out of it. 

Taemin sits quietly, twiddles his thumbs in his lap, checks his phone, watches some late trick-or-treaters on the sidewalk,and is bored within a minute. 

 "Choi," he says, kicking the back of the driver seat. "C’mere.” 

 "Why?" Minho asks, but he's already splitting off from himself again, twisting out of his seat belt and clambering over the center console. This Minho has a red and white striped beanie with a red poof on top and Taemin frowns at it, confused, before he understands suddenly with a big gasp.

"Oh," he says, reaching up to touch the hat as Minho buckles himself into the middle seat. "You're, like, where's Waldo?" he asks.

"Yeah," Minho grins. Minho still in the driver's seat waves his hand over the center console so Taemin can see his red and white striped sweater too. "I'm one of the party games. I'll split into six different me’s and everyone gets a little sticker sheet and then if you find all of me then you get, like. " he hesitates, frowns, brings his fist to his mouth in thought. "I don't know," he mumbles. "I don't remember. Jinki is in charge of the prizes this year." 

"Hm," Taemin says. "Cool." That's a fun idea. He wonders if he can snag all six stickers before the party and then try to pretend he got them all legally to Jinki later. "Anyway, fight me,” he says, opening up a phone game that the two of them like to play together.

"Oh, fuck yeah," Minho says. He reaches into his pocket, then sighs, rolls his eyes, and holds his hand up towards himself in the driver's seat. Minho splits off just an arm so he doesn't have to take his hand off of the steering wheel and grabs his phone, passing it back to Minho. 

"Get ready to get fucked," he taunts as he opens up the app.

"Quit flirting with me," Taemin says back. Minho's disgruntled mumbles in reply are music to his ears.

Four wins and four losses later, the ride to Minho and Jinki’s place has flown by and Minho is squinting at him with the vengeance of yet another stalemate right up until the last second that he merges back into himself and unbuckles his seat belt. Getting out of the car himself, he smiles at Jonghyun's back as the big fuzzball jogs up the front walkway and throws his arms around Jinki as soon as he opens the door. 

 Jonghyun is holding back as much as he can, but still, Jinki squishes, expands, oozes a little down Jonghyun's back as he hugs back. When Taemin walks up behind Jonghyun, Jinki glances at him and smiles, nodding his head up and down in greeting. He holds out a hand and Taemin takes it to hold, squishing his jelly fingers and poking his own fingers all over Jinki's palm to see the divots slowly form back to normal. He's made himself an almost clear blue so Taemin can look right through him and see a blurry, blue tinted picture of the beginnings of spooky party decorations. 

 Taemin knows that Jonghyun is going to be hugging Jinki for a while, so he slips into the house around them. Key is already bustling in a pile of decorations so Taemin heads into the kitchen, grabs himself a soda, and is just starting to make his way to the couch to sit and play Minho's video games when he's intercepted by Jinki. 

 "Hey," he smiles. He does his eye smile, head tilted, knees tensing and untensing so he jiggles all over, hair extra wiggly on top of his head. Taemin knows that smile and he groans, putting his face into his hands.

"That's so not fair, you know I'm soft for you," he whines, and then, "What do you need help with?"

Jinki smiles even wider, clear teeth visible even in the vague jelly details of his face. He holds up a box full of glitter and confetti. 

"Put these in me so I can be a blacklight party boi," he says. 

 And how the fuck is Taemin supposed to resist that?

"Fine, but I'm grumpy about it," he says, taking the box and then following Jinki back to the kitchen. Jinki sits himself on the kitchen counter and holds his arm out, splatting one finger against Taemin's cheek.

 "How long is that going to last?" he drawls. Taemin has a grumpy response to give him, but when he opens the box, the first thing that he sees are glow in the dark stars and suddenly he's not grumpy anymore. He chooses to just not respond in favor of picking one out and pressing it gently into Jinki's forearm. It slips in easily, his finger following it until he gets it centered enough and takes his finger out.

 Jinki's slime makes a funny little squelching noise when he does, sucking on his finger before letting him pop free. Taemin bites back a grin. He loves that. He pokes Jinki again, diddling his finger around in there until he can sense the cocked eyebrow. He glances up just to make sure and blushes when it's actually both eyebrows raised. He doesn't need this. He's doing Jinki a favor and he does not need to be judged for getting some stimmy on while he does it.

"God, you're going to look so fucking cool," he mumbles instead of acknowledging anything in the past 15 seconds. When Taemin is done with him he's going to look so fucking sick. 

And he does; Taemin fills him up with stars and beads and fluorescent glitter. He pops two neon beads through the back of Jinki's head to give him glowing eyes. He feeds one big long pipe cleaner into his left shoulder and all the way down to his right foot. He writes GAY on his sides with tiny plastic hearts. By the time he's done, Jinki sparkles and glitters and looks like an entire galaxy contained in one person. And that's before he even gets under a blacklight.

"You're welcome," Taemin says as he snaps the box of art supplies closed. Jinki smiles, squishes Taemin's face with his squishy hands.

 "Where’s your costume, by the way?" he asks. Taemin shrugs, shakes his head, smiles sheepishly. 

"I'm just going to, you know," he says, and concentrates for a moment until his demon horns start to grow up a little bit through his bangs. "But, like, bigger," he says, letting them sink back in. "And all over. Purple, Maybe? Maybe green. I don't know. Definitely scaly this year, though." He's going to be a spiky lizard boi. It's just too much effort to keep himself all demoned out for too long so he doesn't want to do it until the party starts. It's a lazy costume, but whatever. He's a lazy boi. 

"Cool," Jinki says. He hops off of the counter, sinking down a little bit as his feet puddle over the tile before he bounces back up. "Key was saying something about making you help set up the tiny pumpkins, so, you know." he taps Taemin's temple and points towards the living room. "Be careful."

"Yikes," Taemin says. Awful. Worst boyfriend. Taemin is going to pick his nose in front of him and eat the booger extra slow on purpose to get him back later. For now, to avoid being put to work, he sneaks out the other side of the kitchen and hides in Jinki's office, which has already been turned into a cool black light dance room. He finds Jinki's switch console, turns on the cool little rotating laser thing so blue dots spiral over the walls and the ceiling, and invites himself to lie down right in the middle of the floor. This is good. He'll hang out here and play Jinki’s video games until it's midnight party time. 

 He winds up playing Mario Rabbids for so long that the battery dies, and then after he guiltily plugs it back into the charger, winds up just lying on the floor and watching the lights play over the ceiling until he falls asleep in the corner. Then, before he knows it, he wakes up and it's almost 2 in the morning and people are dancing around him and he's already missed the first party game.

Sheepishly, groggily, he makes his way through the room until he finds a mirror in the hallway and does up his demon look. Big hot curved horns, spikes under his eyes, along his jaw, nice big claws, ridges along his arms and neck. Cool purple and green scales. Hell yeah. Fuck yeah. 

 He lost rock paper scissors with Key earlier so he has to stay sober tonight to make sure that they get back home okay, especially Jonghyun after transforming back into his human form. Usually he would head straight to the jello shots, but he just wanders around instead, hovering mostly between video games in the living room and jamming out in the blacklight room when he gets bored. There's spooky fun party stuff outside, too, but there's also a bunch of werewolves out there being loud and he doesn't have the energy to deal with that tonight. 

He makes out with a hot witch, kicks everyone's ass in the dance contest, grabs the box of white chocolate frosted brownies and just carries them around the party so he can eat them all himself, makes out with a hot glow in the dark slime person, watches Minho flirt with every boy taller than him, does half of the scavenger hunt out back before he gets bored and gives all of his things to Jonghyun to help him win instead. 

By the time dawn comes around, Taemin is all tuckered out. He's so tired that he sits down to pee, dropping his elbow on his knee and his cheek in his hand, twisting to yawn into his fingers. As he washes his hands, he glances at himself in the mirror. His big cool spikes from earlier are barely soft little friendly bumps by now, his horns little nubs on his forehead. His scales are almost all the way gone, too, even though he could have sworn he was still putting energy into keeping them on. Maybe he's more tired than he thought.

Leaving the bathroom, he glances out of the back window and smiles to see Jonghyun and all of his other werewolf pals out there in a big cuddle puddle on the grass. Each one of them has a different pair of animal ear headbands, and every one of them is proudly snoozing in their first place group costume contest crowns. Taemin takes a moment to watch his favorite wolf flick his tail in his sleep. He's so cute.

He glances into the blacklight room next, which is empty except for a couple of fairies dressed as Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus floating around the ceiling and Jinki. At some point he must have stolen control of the speakers and turned the heavy party jams into his own chill bouncy playlist. He's grooving the way he does best, jiggling to the tunes, eyes closed, hands up in front of himself, sparkling with glitter and stars and fairy dust. Taemin leaves him to it since he seems to be having such a good time.

The bedrooms are next, and Taemin hesitates outside of Minho's door. He stares at it for a long moment, trying to figure out exactly how much of a gremlin he feels like right now. He knows that Minho is in there right now with 3 very charming vampires and one very beefy, very handsome orc. Taemin could peek in there now to embarrass him, but. Nah. He doesn't feel like it. He lets Minho off easy this time and just continues his way into the living room. 

 Where a drunk Key head is lying sideways on a bookshelf and trying to communicate to his drunk body how to come get him. Taemin could help him out, but also, he doesn't feel like that either. What he does feel like doing is flopping on to the couch next to a snoring harpy and enjoying the show. 

So that's exactly what he does.

Best Halloween party he's been to in years. 

[chimpanzeemusic]

I’ve been picking up some financial slack between jobs and travels by working as a substitute teacher. The pay is bad, The flexibility is nice, the absurd conversations are worth remembering.

2nd Grade 7 year-old: So, how old are you? Me: Eighty two. 7 year-old: Oh. An hour later, another teacher enters the room to get something and I recognize her from when I used to swim at a neighborhood pool, and we chat Me to teacher: Yeah, I think I was a teenager when your kids began swimming there. 7 year-old is watching nearby, eyes narrowed. After the other teacher leaves, he moves to confront me. 7 year-old: You were talking to the teacher, and she’s, like, thirty-nine. If you’re just a little older than her kids… then you’re not eighty-two! Me: My disguise has been discovered! **runs from the room**

Katrina, 2 min sketch

High School Typically the easiest job. The benefit is  people don’t really care about your existence, so they mostly do their own thing. The drawback is people don’t really care about your existence, and mostly do their own thing, regardless of what you do.

The high school medical anatomy class finishes a quiz. Student: Can you put on some surgeries for us to watch while we’re working? Me: Your teacher shows you these in class. Student: Yeah, totally. Me: I have no way of verifying the truthfulness of this claim. Imma go with no. Student, sighing with disappointment: Ohhhkay. It’s probably for the best, though. People sometimes pass out when they watch nose surgeries, they put a chisel up the nose and pound with a hammer… that tends to get ’em. The next class comes in. Me: Does Mr. C show y’all surgeries? Class: Yes. Me: Oohkay then.

I asked another class about Mr C, who apparently shows all kinds of amputations, ACL surgeries, removal of a hairball from the stomach of a woman addicting to eating her own Herbal Essence-infused follicles, the extrication of a fist-sized kidney stone from a bladder…

Student 1: Sometimes I can’t watch. Student 2: We’ll be dissecting something in class and he’ll cut off a piece, like he did with this cow lung one time, and He flung it at the whiteboard and yelled “Look, it sticks!” and then just left the slice there all class period. We get blood on the whiteboard a lot.

“He flung it at the whiteboard and yelled ‘Look, it sticks!’ and then just left the slice of cow lung there all class period. We get blood on the whiteboard a lot.’

#justsurgerythings

That part about sticking a chisel up someone’s nose and whacking it with a hammer? Apparently it’s accepted rhinoplasty technique. Which, disappointingly, does not involve a live rhinoceros.

  Middle School A middle school dance class is practicing for a multicultural dance assembly when someone nabs the audio jack and blasts Justin Bieber’s “Baby.” Me: There is no way this song is still relevant. Middle schoolers sing word-for-word to the song. Me: It cannot be. The Ludacris rap section begins, even bystanders get down. Ludacris and Tweens: “When I was thirteeeen, I had my first luuuv!” There was nobody that compared to my baaaaby— And nobody came between us, no one could ever come aboooove…!” Me: noooo

Elementary If you’ve slept sufficiently, elementary and especially kindergarten are enjoyable: busy,  hilarious. Also, cruel.

Me: Hello class! My name is Mr… I lose my train of thought and hesitate a split-minute too long. Kindergartner: Potato! Kindergartners, losing it completely: Hahahaha! Mr. Potato! Me: What? No, it’s— Kindergartners: Potato! Potato! Mr. Potato! After weakly struggling to restore order, I retreat to the teacher’s desk and sulk quietly. Me: My name is not Mr. Potato.

#organic

Kindergartner: Your shirt has lots of birds on it. Me: That is because I am secretly lots of birds taped together. Kindergartner: …

A student teacher is leading the kindergartners in reading three-letter words aloud. I am reading with them, but have not yet been introduced. I am sitting next to Señorita Sassypants, a bright, outspoken and conniving child. Class: B-at. J-am. C-at. H-am. Me: Bat. Jam. Cat. Ham. Señorita Sassypants: Wait, how do you already know all this stuff? You don’t go here. You’re not a student!” Inclusive Child, (same height as my waist):  Wait, wait, you go here! You can be a student, too!

Kinder 1: Why you wearing fancy shoes? Me: These here are my dancing shoes. Kinder 1: Why you wearing dancing shoes? Me: So I can dance away the blues. Kinder 1: …Huh? Kinder 2: You’re Team Rocket!?

Hairy Otter and the Rage of Elsa, Conte on Paper

Six-year old: When you learned to walk, you were one year old. Five-year old: Actually, I was five!

Who gets to draw the Purple Froople?

Visiting Music Teacher to kids: Who gets to draw the Purple Froople?

Fergalicious, an ideal name for your weasel

Child: I want to draw the Chocolate Womple! Visiting Music Teacher: Nina, your Stroiper looks amazing. Me to me: The heck is going on in hereMy brother also subbed kindergarten for a bit. Here’s two experiences of his: Brother: Okay guys, I am going to tell you about a scary story about a time I had a run-in from a bear. Before he even begins the story, several students crawl beneath their seats. Brother: Where–what are you are you doing? Students: We’re scared, teacher! Brother: Look, you can’t be under there. Everyone get back up. They do. He tells a story where various noises and surprises happen and the students think it is a bear, but it ends up being a stick, or a squirrel, until… …Well, the next thing that happened was as I laid in my hammock was the bear came up and pushed my hammock a little. And then I screamed, and looked out of my hammock, and it ran away into the woods! I had to change my pants after that. Student 1: Wait, why did you have to— Student 2: IT’S ‘CAUSE HE PEED HIMSELF! Students, shrieking with laughter at the implied urination, fall on the floor and roll around, at last fulfilling the ancient AOL messenger prophecy, “ROFLOL.”

Students shriek with laughter at the implied urination.

Brother is passing the school snack to students. It is pineapple, which many have not tried before. Brother: It’s pretty good, right? Students nod and continue eating the unfamiliar fruit. Brother:There’s lots, if anyone wants to eat more. Students return for seconds, then many for thirds. As the children eat, the pineapple begins to tenderize their mouths. One girl sticks out her tongue and begins to touch it, wincing. Frightened child: My—my tongue hurts! A number of things happen simultaneously. Several other students also conclude they are hurt, dying, even. Yet another student screams out as two students run for the door. Take Action Children: Hold on! We’ll go get the principal! Sprinting for help, they almost escape before Brother is able to catch up, contain the breach, and calm the frightened students by persuading them to drink water. The Great Pineapple Crisis has been averted.

Let us now return to dumb and mean things kids say.

Child playing doctor during playtime: **approaches fellow child on tiny couch, places stethoscope on Patient Child, listens, and begins to panic as a diagnosis is made** Doctor Child: She has the contagious!

Big Treble in Little City, Conte pencil on paper. Artist: Señorita Sass

I am demonstrating an intentionally bad magic trick for Señorita Sassypants. I put my face in profile and pretend to pull a pencil out of my nose. Señorita Sassypants: You didn’t pull that out of your nose. There’s no boogers on it.

“You didn’t pull that out of your nose. There’s no boogers on it.”

Me: Rats! You got me. But check this out. I select a white crayon and twiddle it in my hands and slip it into my lap when SS’s concentration wavers. I drop it to the floor and it rolls under the table, where I put my foot over it. Me: It’s gone. Bam. Magic crayon. SS searches my hands and sleeves, finding nothing. She begins to search the floor, frustration building. She peers beneath the edge of my shoe and spots the crayon, which she seizes triumphantly and holds aloft, sneering. Me: Uh, it must have teleported! SS, drawing close to my face: No, you hid it there. This crayon isn’t magic. You’re not magic. **snaps crayon in half, tossing the fragments of wax and vaudeville showbiz dreams to the floor**

JajsKe, Ballpoint on Paper

Time for dinner: Platinum Edition

Inclusive Child: Do you know Cat? Me: The despicable animal? IC: No, my friend from church. Me, rolling with it: Oh, right. Our mutual friend, Cat. IC: You know Cat? Me: Yaaah. About yea tall **gestures about three feet in the air** likes running… and… pizza.” IC: Wow! You know Cat!

Inclusive Child, giving me the sideye: Are you a kid, or a dad? Me: I’m not a dad. IC: So… you’re a kid? ‘Cause you look like a dad. Me: …Yes? No! I’m not a dad, but I am an uncle. In fact, I have four– IC: An uncle? I—I thought you were a kid!

Señorita Sassypants peers in my ear while I sit criss-cross applesauce on the floor. Señorita Sassypants: The inside of your ears are disgusting. Me to me: I have just had my personal hygiene questioned by a child. I have never before felt so insecure.

elixir of life

2nd Grade Me, joking: Hey, look, it’s those purple glue sticks! Makes you kinda hungry, yeah? Child 1: Yeah. I haven’t had one in a while, though.  They’re not bad. A little minty.

“Hey, look, it’s those purple glue sticks! Makes you kinda hungry, yeah?” “Yeah. I haven’t had one in a while, though. They’re not bad. A little minty.”

Me: Wait—I was just joking— Child 2: Yeah, minty is a good way to put it. But they sort of give you a headache. Child 1:  Just a little one. Me: A headache. Do you… eat these often? Child 2: Not that much. Child 1: Like, not that much, I mean, I’ve only eaten them twice this school year. Child 2: Twice for me, too. Me: It’s barely October.  Child 3, wandering over: Are we talking about eating glue? Me: You—you’ve also— Child 3: It’s pretty good. Kinda minty, but there might be little bit of a headache after. Me: …ohhkay then. Hours pass. All the students have left for the day. A purple glue stick sits temptingly on a semicircle table.The pursuit of knowledge and flavor beckons. It’s labeled nontoxic, after all… “Hey, that is minty!”

Then… the headache.

For more ridiculous school conversations, do check out the original Tales from the Trenches: Conversations of a Substitute Teacher.  Then, go hug a teacher. And put money and chocolate syrup into their bag so they can have a good Monday.

Mercenary of Knowledge: More Conversations of a Substitute Teacher I've been picking up some financial slack between jobs and travels by working as a substitute teacher.