I knew today was going to suck.
My weekend was…exasperating. I never got that work done. I flat out didn’t. So here it is, in my e-mail box, perhaps the opportunity that I’ve been waiting on for the last four years and…
And I can’t answer the door because I’m getting a bottle for a kid every two minutes, or keeping the short people from beating the hell out of each other when they should be in bed or answering Big T’s inane questions at weird times or sweetly disentangling myself from beloved Chicken because she tends to glom or… or… or… or ANYTHING that revolves around kids who won’t let me alone for 2 1/2 minutes to allow a lousy stinking thought to rattle around my head like a lone gum ball in a cracked gum-ball machine when, apparently, Mate has some sort of OFF repellent for anything resembling a distraction as his animated troll kicks ass.
So walking into my students was going to suck. I knew it. I had, in no way, shape, or form, achieved the psychic healing that I needed to face them, and I hated them all as they walked up the ramp.
I hated them all as I taught my 2nd period. Even the nice ones.
I hated them all as I blew by my 3rd period to get to the bathroom, and I hated them all plus the guy in the stall I was waiting for as I waited to use it.
And then my colleague came out of the john, and I asked him if he ever hated the world, and he responded, “No. I just don’t let them get to me.”
I said, “Well, maybe that’s the flipside of being a ‘blue’.” (This is school code for emotion-driven, thanks to one of the cheeziest in-services I’ve ever been herded into with a cattle-prod.)
He rolled his eyes–he disapproves of ‘blue-ness’ and I laughed. And then this song hit me.
It’s on the Gray’s Anatomy soundtrack–it is, in fact, called ‘I hate everyone.’ It is not a mean-assed metal song–in fact, it has this really perky beat with this really sweet-voiced singer and the irony between that perky beat and that misanthropic message makes you laugh just to hear it.
I played the song during lunch and for the next two periods, there it was, running around in my head…All the people in the street…
I hate you all.
And the people that I see.
I hate you all.
And the people that I don’t.
I hate you all.
And all of the sudden, I’m laughing, secretly, to myself, because the kids saw me, dancing around, humming to myself, talking over, around, under, and through their relentless narcissism, and they thought I was in a good mood.
And, abruptly, so I was.
I told one of my best students in 6th period (where, I determined, 1/4 of the class has a gpa of less than 1.0–they’re Juniors. This means their odds of graduating are roughly the odds of me, winning the American Junior Miss pageant, should I decide to enter) about the song, and she thought it was funny. Then, as I waited for the class to basically calm down, we both caught me humming it out loud.
She burst out laughing–of all people, she is the most victimized by the horrendous manners of my 6th period class, since they do deprive her of the education she’s working her ass off to get.
And then my transformation was complete.
And isn’t that the coolest paradox? By embracing my right to be a grumpy bitch, abruptly I didn’t hate anyone at all:-)
