Daily Diatribes

This poor little blog. Just like my family and everything else in my life, it’s been neglected.

I have a major, grade-A case of writer’s block. My mind is clogged with educational theories (which contradict each other), research paper writing techniques (which contradict each other), and all sorts of lint and dust bunnies. I haven’t had the spare brain cells to write, which is sad, because I have lots to say. So I’m gonna do one of my Colonic blogs, where I spill out my mental bowels onto the page and hope to unclog the drainpipe!

Let’s start with the family. Last week, I went downstairs to leave for work and I noticed my car was sitting in a puddle of water. Since I park in the garage, this was somewhat troubling, especially since water was dripping steadily from the ceiling onto the car. The forecast in the garage is usually sunny and clear, and I was distressed by apparent rain shower. So I called Stalin at work as I backed out of the garage.

“Hey,” I said when he answered, “it’s raining in the garage.”

“What?” he said intelligently (he’s a bit slow in the mornings).

“My car was sitting in a puddle of water in the garage and there’s water dripping from the ceiling. You need to come home and figure out why it’s raining in our garage.”

“Can’t you go look at it?” he asked huffily.

“No dear,” I said patiently, “I’m on my way to work.”

“You can take minute to go upstairs?” he asked in an irritated tone.

“No, I can’t,” I told him. “I’ll be late if I don’t leave now.”

“Whatever,” he said. “I’ll get around to it,” and hung up the phone as if this were all my fault.

Two things about Stalin: he says “whatever” in the EXACT same tone as our teenage daughter and he does NOT understand my job. You see, Stalin is self-employed. This is a beautiful thing because it means he OWNS his place of employment. He is a veterinarian and has a staff of highly trained, loyal employees. He can leave whenever he wants. Granted, it’s not always convenient, but the dogs and cats will still be in their cages when he returns.

Unfortunately, I work for THE MAN, or if you prefer, the public school system. Actually, I’m currently a STUDENT teacher and I don’t even get paid, which makes my job even more restrictive. I’m an indentured servant of sorts; if I’m not at school from beginning to end, I fail student teaching. And the powers-that-be frown when you don’t show up on time, even if it is raining in your garage. Because whether or not I am there at 7:45, the bell still rings, and the students still appear in the classroom like freaking clockwork!! Idiot superintendents have cracked down on truancy, and those students show up EVERY DAY!!! Even worse, I supervise teenagers and unfortunately, federal law prohibits placing them in cages for long periods of time. Certainly, I disagree with this law and am working with activists to get it changed, but for the moment, the little monsters are allowed to roam freely and copulate at will. Being in a high school is a lot like being on the Serengeti, only the animals wear expensive clothing.

So it’s a bit frustrating when Stalin assumes that I can just drop everything to handle a domestic problem. In our “salad days”, in the “days of wine and roses”, in the “GOOD OLD DAYS,” this was certainly true, but that was then and this is now. Now, I have a job and shockingly enough, those people expect me to come on time EVERY DAY!!! This has caused me a great deal of distress, but I have resigned myself to the fact that I have to show up every single day, on time. It’s how it has to be. Unfortunately, this leaves Stalin in charge of the domestic issues and for this particular issue, I was happy to leave him in charge. I hung up and forgot about the entire thing.

Until that night, when I returned home and found all the baskets that usually reside on top of the refrigerator piled on our kitchen table.

“Um, what caused the rain shower?” I asked him when he got home.

“Oh, it was coming from the refrigerator,” he replied cheerfully. Mood swings, that one. “But I disconnected the water, so it’s not leaking anymore. Of course,” he looked a bit pensive, “that means we don’t have any ice, but I’ll get around to fixing it.”

Well dear reader, that was last week. We still have no ice. The goddess asked me last night why we didn’t have any ice and I told her the refrigerator was broken.

“But Daddy will fix it,” I told her.

She snickered. That’s right, the TEN YEAR old snickered and said “Mom, do you REALLY think he’s going to get around to fixing it?”

Sadly, she is wise beyond her years and speaks the truth. But there have been no more rain showers in the garage either. I guess I should take what I can get and be grateful!!!