In Sickness and In Health

Nobody likes it when their kid is sick. Parents feel helpless and are forced to supply their children with much needed doses of Theraflu and Robitussin at various intervals throughout the day. Some take off work to nurse their children back to health, constantly monitoring their fever, holding their clammy hands, and bringing them soup and saltines when they are sure it won’t make a return visit 20 minutes later. These are the best kind of parents.

 My parents were like that. My Mom worked nights and when we were sick she would sleep very little during the day. She would constantly check on us and, being a nurse, she always had a knack for coming up with the right cocktail of over the counter meds that would make us feel better and knock us out if we needed it. Dad was great too. He would always get stuck with picking up the medicine on his way home from work, while Mom stayed with us during the day. In addition to the medicine, he would always bring home Sprite if we had an uneasy stomach. It was the REAL Sprite too, not the “Lemon Lime Sierra Mist 7 wannabe Sprite.” Dad knew how to get the good stuff. He was also the one we would call during the day to pick us up from school if my mom was out of town running errands or had to stay at the hospital for a class. Both of them were pretty great about picking us up from school, even during the times when we were CLEARLY faking it. If Dad picked you up, it was on his lunch hour, and he would take you home and you’d crawl into bed and he would go back to work for a few hours. This was only when we were old enough to stay at home, and even then, he was always home early. If Mom picked you up, you’d stop by the pharmacy, go home and lay on the couch. She would sit there with you, risking contamination herself, and bring you ice and feel your forehead from time to time.

 It was the best. If you were lucky enough to have parents that were Saints like this, first of all, thank them, and secondly, pay it forward. Provide your kids with the same love and care you received. And if you didn’t have those parents, break the cycle. Be the parents you were always jealous of, and then, put your parents in a home where the orderlies make them do back breaking labor like in Happy Gilmore…that’ll show ‘em!

 I have to admit, I have a hidden agenda here. While I do think that parents should provide their children with necessary care such as this, my main reason for soap boxing is that I don’t want to be the one who has to deal with your biohazard children! Yeah, I said it! Most parents don’t think twice about sending their kids to school. The drag their pale carcasses out of bed, shove their sweaty bodies into some sweat pants and a shirt, fireman carry them onto the bus, and then go shower off the germs before work. I hate you, parents of the world. Not once during this ritual of expelling the diseased from your house and from your care did you think of the poor schmuck you are leaving in charge of your children. No, you were thinking, “Oh, I have that big marketing meeting today…” or “He’ll be fine, he hasn’t turned green yet…” or, what I believe to be the most common reason, “There is NO WAY I am using another vacation day. This little bastard is going to school!” On behalf of teachers everywhere, I would like to say, “YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE!!!” Everyday, we face students who serve as carriers for every disease, virus, and flu known to man. We are essentially stuck in that movie “Contagion” or “Outbreak” or “Planet of the Apes”, because, let’s face it, some of your children look and behave like animals.  

Parents forget, or rather don’t care, that teachers are human too, and are therefore susceptible to sickness. Veteran teachers will tell you that you will get incredibly sick at least once while in your first few years of teaching. I can tell you from experience that this is true. You can do everything right, but if one of those rats (students) is carrying the bubonic plague, you’re gonna get it. In my first few years of teaching, I was unfortunate enough to get 3 stomach bugs, one for each school I taught at. When you’re a traveling teacher you are essentially battling against illness at 2 or more schools, fighting the good fight on multiple fronts or taking it in from all sides (that’s what she said). Most teachers don’t have to travel. They only make Art, Music, and Foreign Language teachers travel. And I am not talking about switching classrooms (although they never make math and science teachers do that either), I am talking about switching SCHOOLS! Yes, as if it wasn’t insulting enough that they cut your programs first, they then banish the Arts faculty to the far reaches of the building and force them to go to other schools …like prisoner transfers in our penal systems (hahaha, penal systems!) but you have to drive your own car and there are no shackles…unless you’re into that kind of thing…

So there you are, teaching in 2 schools, using 2 different room phones, 2 different sets of door knobs, touching 2 different pianos (that you probably have to move all over the school while those douche bags that teach Math get to stay in their room, even though they only use a fucking marker!), conversing with 2 sets of students, using 2 different computers…you get the point. The amount of things you have to touch everyday while teaching is disgusting, and God knows who uses that stuff when you’re not there…it’s most likely Billy, who fails to implement the vampire sneezing technique* EVERY DAMN TIME! 

Some of you think you can conquer the germs by using hand sanitizer, but you’re kidding yourselves. Hand sanitizer is not match for the super germs that these little monsters bring in today. Also, most hand sanitizers don’t even have the correct percentage of alcohol to kill off the bad germs (Thanks Period 3 Theory!), so in reality, you’re in the lab testing group that is using the placebo. A.K.A: You’re fucked! Hand washing is also really good, but you can’t hold off the germs forever….they’ll find you and they’ll have help. 

My favorite thing about sick students is that they seem to gravitate towards you. Because their parents are assholes and sent them to school, they learn that asshole-y behavior is acceptable and immediately put it into practice. When I am sick, I do my best to avoid physical contact with people, over medicate, and quarantine myself as much as possible. Kids don’t do this. They march right up to your face and say “I’m sick today…I actually just finished throwing up in the bathroom RIGHT before I came here! Let me breathe on you so that you can join in the fun that is going on in my violently retching insides!!!” They have NO idea that they do it too. When you’re sick, you don’t have as much energy and therefore are not as attentive in class. Perhaps they feel the need to tell you personally so that you won’t think that they are lacking in effort. They WANT you to know that you can see every color of the rainbow in the tissue they just used, and that their head is hot enough for you to grill that Lean Cuisine Panini that you brought for lunch that day, and that they now know what a half digested Big Mac looks like. I am getting sick just writing about this…imagine having to hear it first hand from kids you don’t really even know that well or, better yet, kids you don’t even LIKE!

I don’t get it. I am of the opinion that if you are, in fact, sick, STAY HOME! A sore throat is one thing. I can even handle the sniffles, but if you’re coughing continuously and each time you feel as though the only thing keeping your lungs inside your body is your throat, which is so swollen you can barely breathe, then YOU. NEED. TO. GO. HOME! I am not going to commend you for coming in sick. There are no gold stars to be awarded, or bonus points given because you were “brave” enough to attend school in your fragile condition. You’re certainly not doing me any favors. In fact, if it were possible, I would actually deduct points from your final average if you came in to school feeling anything less than 100%. Your progress report would read, “Student is a festering mass of disgusting” or “If your son/daughter comes to school sick again I will seize the first opportunity to push them off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic.” 

Not only are sick kids repulsive for obvious reasons, they’re needy. We’re all needy when we’re sick. That, I understand. However, when you come to school and I have a chorus of 120 people to deal with I can’t take the time out of class to cater to your every need. You know better than anyone what you need to do to feel better, so DO IT! Unless you need to sleep, in which case I would say, “Are you fucking kidding me?” First, you come to school, gross and contagious, you’ve put your germy hands on everything within reach, you have come up and told me you are sick and have most likely breathed directly in my mouth, and then you have the AUDACITY to ask me if you can sleep during my class. You little bastard! NO, YOU CAN NOT SLEEP IN MY CLASS! You can do what everyone else is doing, because that is why you came to school in the first place, RIGHT? If you wanted to sleep, you could have stayed at home. I am just giving you what you want, so don’t complain to me! You asked for it. And then, when I don’t let them sleep, they ask to go to the nurse. Now, I love school nurses. I had the great fortune of having the best school nurse EVER in middle school. She was so kind and nice and friendly. I still say “hello” to her every time I see her and she still knows my name. That is how awesome she is. That being said, she was only a great care giver. She couldn’t give us any medication, or diagnose anything. You only went to see her if you were injured or if you were to sick to stay in school. Now, if you decided to be IN school, what good is it going to the nurse going to do you? They can’t do anything!!! Kids only go there to sleep because you turned out to be a cruel jackass that has no sympathy for their illness. So essentially, they have figured out a way to “legally skip” your class.

The other thing that frustrates the hell out of me is tissues. Do you have any clue how many tissues kids use? They’re like crack to these kids. Even if they’re not sick, they will still find a way to use it. Do you remember when you were younger and everything needed a bandaid? Even if it was just a bruise, or you bumped your arm on the door, or you had a hangnail that you pulled, you needed a fucking bandaid! Tissues are the new bandaids. Kids have special tissue radar. They come into your class and upon entering, they immediately scope out the location of the box of tissues. If they can not immediately see it, they will ask you where you put the tissue box, and God forbid you say “we’re out!” or “I don’t have any.” You might as well have skinned a cat in front of these kids for the look of sheer horror, despair, and anger you will receive. “NO TISSUES!!!! Who are you, HITLER?” No, I don’t have any freaking tissues. You used 26 yesterday when you came to school as a snot factory! 

I used to wonder why we had tissues listed on our school supply list in elementary school. Now I know why!!! The cost for a teacher to buy an entire class tissues would be ASTRONOMICAL! If kids are using this many tissues, perhaps there should be line in the budget for that! Maybe we should apply for some federal funding. Does Obama know about the tissue crisis? Honestly people, if you are a grotesque snotty mucus-y mess, BRING YOUR OWN DAMN TISSUES! I told one of my classes just that last year. They were not pleased. I left the empty box of tissues on the desk, just to screw with them. Next to it was an empty bottle of hand sanitizer, because those bitches used all of that too! No way in HELL am I replacing those things. Each day they would come up to the box and the bottle, hoping beyond hope that the tissue fairy and the sanitizer elf granted their wish and refilled them under cover of night. “Today was the day”, they thought; their mini Christmas morning. Their face would immediately fall upon sing that both containers were once again empty, and the containers would then serve as a receptacle for their broken hopes and dreams. It was my small revenge!

Whenever you’re sick, doctors recommend some rest and relaxation. Now, seeing as how they went to school for about 18 years of their life and, seeing as how you probably have a seasonal flu, you should probably listen to their advice. But instead, you trust the fact that you know best. After all, you are in middle or high school. You CLEARLY already know everything, so that doctor was clearly trying to cheat you out of spending another glorious school day with your friends! The joke’s on him because you ultimately decided to go to school! TAKE THAT DOC! And to the parents who had to go to that marketing meeting, I hope your fly was down and that you tripped over the easel, you selfish bastard.

*Vampire sneezing technique: Sneezing into your elbow as you draw your arm up to your face. If done correctly, you look like Dracula as he draws his cape up to conceal everything but his eyes…yes, this is a real thing…ask an elementary school teacher.