Everyone's a little off...Monday

The grey primer colored Chevelle with jacked up back tires rides over gravel leaving a small trail of rock dust. Poof. The dust rises and falls. Nevermind, the fact that the gravel is the landscaping between my house and my neighbors and a few juniper have been killed in the process of parking. They are torn out of the ground and I see remenants of black landscaping paper everywhere. "I am home now." The car announces flatly in a voice that reminds me of Knight Rider only its a male version of that voice.

I'm outside shaking my head wondering why my daughter has bought such a piece of crap car. She's inside of the car telling it to open, so that she can get out. The trunk and the hood fly open following her directions... kind'ave. I instinctly close the hood and the trunk and shake my fist at the car and that's when the car reacts by shaking and emits a loud alarm noise.

Wait..That's my alarm! Grabbing the iphone to turn it off. I'm so tired and now and my other daughter is in front of me asking about the whereabouts of black stretch pants. After grabbing a coffee, taking vitamins, getting dressed, and helping the kids make their bus I speed to class. The dream is in the back of my mind still. I really hate what my mind does to things. How can it be at all helpful to dream such odd things? Stupid subconcious. Stupid traffic. Stupid crappin' to do list that never ends. Stupid news reports. Parking at the school lot finally. A sense of calm comes over me. Its just another day. Wait.

This class, didn't finish the agenda items from the last class, so the lesson plan has been spliced to reflect some changes. Luckily, there is enough repetitition in the lessons, so that the splice is basically seamless...to them, the students. I take roll and everything is familiar again. The people, the agenda, the activities. And just as I was settling in to calling roll the door bursts open as if Superman himself were making a guest appearance. "I'm late!" A young man in a screaming orange shirt stands in the middle of the room. He has a long ponytail all tied up in a bandana. He is wearing long basketball shorts. "Shall I come in?"
He sits down and begins pounding on his keyboard. I feel a little like Mr. Magoo when he opens his eyes for the first time. "Good morning" I manage to say, trying to be completely expressionless, because the truth is I am totally shocked. "Have a seat Mr...."
"No Mr. Just call me T."
"Oh" I say, putting a T meaning tardy next to Mr. T...who looks nothing like the real Mr. T. by the way. I'm thinking I really need another cup of coffee. Half the class is laughing and half the class is shocked, but we persist on through the agenda. What I notice, is that the students who have been absent already struggle. They have just a missed a few class periods, but still I notice. Now part of me knows these are the very people who don't want to be noticed, but still I talk to them and help them along. They don't glare at me , but I can't help it. They are the ones who need help.

T loves any and all attention that I give him. He is happy and cheerful. Now, there is a guy in my class with rough hands, dark glassess, and he looks like he just finished riding his Harley Davidson who scowls at me. I ignore all the scowling and tell him that he is sitting at a station that is too small. His knees are hitting the top of the table and he will be completely uncomfortable if he doesn't move. I correct him a few times and try to help him along during the course of the lesson. As class is excused, I can tell he is somewhat unhappy. He makes a big effort to apologize to me.

I try to tell him to go to the lab, that there's a learning curve and he really needs the practice.
"I was just apologizing to you" he said. I take that to mean he didn't want the associated learning curve speech. He grabs his backpack and leaves. Now, just like my dream I'm left thinking that I've managed to miss something big. Oh yea, once again I was too quick to react without giving a clear concise answer. Learning something new looks vastly different on everyone who hasn't had practice. I think that was his frustration and he needed reassurance. I think that's what the car wanted too. Oh well, there's always Wednesday.