Strange Little Collecting Project

When I was a kid my mom kept this chocolate in the top cabinet above where I could reach. It was up with all the medicine so I knew I wasn’t supposed to have it, but I never understood why. My six year old mind must have decided that it was my mom’s secret stash of really good chocolate, so good that it needed its own hiding place. Just putting it on top of the refrigerator like she usually did with our Halloween candy wouldn’t cut it. Intrigued, I would climb up on a chair, stand on the counter, and then pilfer pieces of what I thought was the world’s best chocolate. I’m not sure how long this went on and I don’t even remember how I got caught, but I do remember my mom explaining to me that I couldn’t eat that chocolate because it was chocolate and medicine. I had been sucking down our family’s supply of Ex Lax Chocolate. Why on earth a company would make a chocolate product to help you poop…well that’s beside the point. I mean the problems with associating chocolate and pooping are j...

Maybe this is me being too picky because as an English teacher I like my figurative language just a certain way. English teacher or not, I absolutely hate that the educational reform in our country right now is called Race to the Top. As an educator, I’m actually offended by the implications of this name. (I know it’s a huge shock to find out that I am offended by something, but bear with me). All metaphors break down eventually, but I feel like this one breaks down pretty quickly if you think about it for more than a minute or two. This makes me wonder if the powers-that-be did think about it for more than a minute or two, which makes this even more offensive to me. Race to the Top is obviously comparing public education to some type of competitive race. In all races, there are winners and there are losers. Does this mean Race to the Top is admitting that there will be losers in America’s schools? And who will these losers be? And what exactly are they losing? Any time a race is discu...

Tonight I was just a little bit too fast for the doors at Harris Teeter. I confidently approached the automatic doors on my way out, self-righteously carrying my baby spinach and bananas without the environmentally-uncouth convenience of a plastic bag. I was naively expecting the doors to oh, I don’t know, DO THEIR JOB. My nose was practically touching the "Automatic Doors Keep Moving" sign(hilarious joke you tired-ass doors) before they wheezed open and my momentum almost made me fall over onto the candy machines. And this wasn’t the first time this has happened…this week. Monday night I stopped by Target to browse their pen section (I think it might be a teacher thing, but the pen aisle in any store is my happy place) and I ended up buying a fresh pack of multi-colored Precise V-7s. Everybody knows that the V-5s have simply too fine of a tip and they do not allow you to express yourself boldly enough, so it has to be the V-7s…anyway, I bought some new pens and a giant box o...

I have been a member of the world’s bespectacled population for about 15 years now. I still remember when I found out I was going to need glasses. I was in the 6th grade and my teachers started to notice that I was squinting at the chalk board, so my mother took me to the eye doctor. I discovered that in addition to my other shortcomings, I also had 20/90 vision, meaning what most people could see at 90 feet, I could only see at 20 feet. Glasses would be the tragic icing on my cake of social awkwardness. Since I reached my full adult height at the age of 11, I was an abnormally tall 6th grader, but even my impressive 62 inch stature couldn’t gracefully hide the 150 pounds I was carrying around at that time. I also suffered from full blown chronic acne, and my mom had to buy me the special deodorant that probably killed at least one lab rat in its earliest form. All of this angst-inducing, character-building mess was exacerbated by my stirrup pants and puffy-paint sweatshirts. G...