This morning I took the Walk of Shame. I was not worthy of entering the middle school via the side door with all the other teachers. No, this morning I had to walk shamefully through the crowd of students, ring the door bell at the front of the school, and wait sheepishly for the secretary to hopefully recognize me on the camera and let me in.
The 20-second wait felt like an eternity.
I had lost my ID card, you see, and so with it I had lost also my access (both to the building and to the food in the cafeteria line), two keys (one to my classroom and the other to a very important closet), and my dignity.
It took courage to admit my irresponsibility to our school secretary, especially to do so first thing on a Monday morning. And she was not happy with me one bit. I would go on her 2-week waiting list, she said, and by the repetition of the Walk of Shame each morning, I figured I would grow to understand the effects of my negligent actions.
And so, I hung my head in shame the rest of the day, looking up only partially to view the top of my SmartBoard or to catch a glimpse of the hands that were in the air so I would know who to call on during our class discussions, which were, today, oddly void of the usual jolly that one experiences from satisfying number crunching.
I had checked everywhere this weekend for it, tearing my apartment up and down, plunging myself deep beneath the seats of my Jetta, even looking in odd places like the refrigerator or toaster oven, just in case.
But it wasn't until the end of the day, when I finally decided to cry out for help to my beloved mother, when she suggested, "Did you check your pockets?" to which my face suddenly blushed with color. Of course I hadn't. Well, at least not fully.
My coat pocket had a tiny hole in it....and so my keys and ID card managed to somehow line up and neatly walk themselves through the hole and into the LINING of my jacket.
Then, to be even more sneaky, my card and keys deftly crept through the lining into the BACK of my coat, meaning that I was walking around with my precious card and keys right there at my posterior!!You would think that I would have sat down on my coat at some point and would have felt something that didn't belong. But nope!!
So my card and keys had been trailing behind me this whole time and I didn't even know it! And, of course, nobody else would have known it, either, since all of this was happening INSIDE the lining of my coat!
I feel like a dork. I hope my card can simply be reactivated!! This is one of those many moments where I hope my student teacher will NOT learn by my example.
Relieved and ready to stitch up my coat pocket,
Lisa
