Can I Get A Goat?

I swear, some of these kids are trying to get my goat. And I don't even have a goat. But they want it. And they want it bad.

For instance, the kid who came to class 10 minutes late. Now, his story was that he was sick, and going home the next class period. Too bad, so sad, hope you didn't eat any tainted hamburger, kiddo, but I counted you absent, so you need to drag your sickly self back up to the office and tell them you are here, because this will count against your attendance hours. Hmm...he didn't much like that idea. So when he came back, and spent half the remaining time turned around, infatuated in some strange manner with the boy at the desk behind him, so much so that the other students commented, "He sure doesn't LOOK sick!", I told him, "We've decided to buzz the office and tell them that you had a miraculous recovery, and don't need to go home any more." To which he replied, "Oh. I'm not really going home. My dad was here to give me some medicine because I'm going through nicotine withdrawal." Funny thing, he passed me in the hallway before class, and didn't say BOO about being late because he would be in the office waiting for medicine. Reason # 532 why 11th graders should not be in class with 9th graders, no matter how many tries they need to pass a freshman level class.

Here's another goat-getter. "Can you give me a good recommendation to get into the XYZ program? Because if you're going to hold a grudge about me laying down in the floor to go to sleep, then I'm not going to ask you, I'll ask Mrs. Favorite, because I know she likes me." I explained, "I could fill it out, but I would have to be honest. It's not that I hold a grudge about the floor nap. When I told you to get up, you did. But it's all the times I have to tell you not to do something, and you have, how you say...a bit of a temper tantrum. So I could honestly mark the part about you complying immediately with my requests, but I would have to mark that 'fits of rage' one about your temperament." He thought a minute, and said, almost apologetically, "It's nothing personal. I'm just trying you." To which I acknowledged, "I know. You're seeing what you can get away with. No hard feelings. But I would have to be honest." And he decided, "OK. I'll ask Mrs. Favorite."

Then there's the goat-wanter who sighs so incredibly loud and often that a special award should be created just for his exorbitant exhalations. I fear that he may pass out from lack of oxygen. So when he laid his head down on his arms during the first half of class, I kept a close watch on him, to see if he was moving air. And lo and behold, at the time we finished the reading/discussion part of the lesson, he reared his head and requested a pass to the library. Surely he jested. "What? You have not done the assignment. And furthermore, you laid your head down the whole time, and did not join in the discussion." He looked shocked. Maybe it was just hypoxia. "But I was listening the whole time." Nice try. NO PASS FOR YOU!

It's a constant battle. I am an experienced warrior. So this goat-seeking behavior is not so much pissing me off as it is providing me with practice for sharpening my keen wit. I have to be careful, though. They are just children. I must not bruise their tender self esteem. Even though they can tell me they would rather pretend they were called to the office than sit and listen to one of my boring stories.

I suppose some people are just born adrenaline junkies. (Said Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, as she adjusted the shawl with her liver-spotted, palsied hands, so it draped her arthritic legs and covered the spokes of her Rascal, hoping against hope that she had remembered to turn off her Jitterbug).