Occupational Hazard

The Dad and I have never had a tree in our front yard.  It wasn't by design; it's just that the houses we've chosen to buy have not had front yard trees.  The house we were in when Daughter 1 was born had a tree, but since we bought the house in November, we didn't know it was dead until the next March when a wind blew it over.  We eventually planted a tree when Daughter 1 was born but we moved before it got over 4 feet tall.


Being treeless - even if it wasn't a conscious act - has served us well because The Dad and I are teachers.  And since we don't teach at the "Perfect Children Orphanage", we happen to teach kids who might have a tendency to be a little on the ornery side.  And since we happen to teach kids who are in between the ages of 11 and 15, they tend to be a lot on the ornery side.  Lucky for us, if we don't have a tree or trees in our front yard, we never get toilet papered after the first progress reports go out!

That's not to say that after 20 years of teaching, we've let our guard down one single bit.

No siree...

With way too much excitement, Daughter 2 bounded into the kitchen where I was waiting for the Ragu to boil and asked, "Can I see what's in the garbage?"

"Whatever floats your boat, honey," I answered without thinking too much about what she had asked me.  Then she bounded off in the direction opposite of our trashcan.  That kid's always been a little bit crazy.

"What garbage are you looking at?" I hollered, which is only a phrase reserved for Mother Of The Year Candidates.

Whew!  That was a close brush with ornery-ness!

"The garbage on our front porch."

Wait... What?

Quick as a wink, my teacher instincts took over.  "DO NOT TOUCH IT!"  I hollered, grabbing a cup of water in case it burst into flames.  Mentally, I began making a mental list of students who weren't passing my class, students who had been assigned detention and students who had - in a brazen act of boldness - promised to place a flaming sack of poo on my porch.  I'd need that list when I filed the police report.

I slipped on a pair of The Dad's shoes and sprinted toward the front door where Daughter 2 was standing with the door open and a completely mystified look on her face.  The garbage was in a HUGE bag -- that's bound to be an awful lot of doo-doo!

"Don't be mad, Momma," Daughter 2 started, "But I want to keep it."  It?  Had the delinquent put an actual dog in the bag to insure a load of the freshest poop?

"We don't even know what's in it," I told Daughter 2, positioning my oven mitts so that I could open it without too much spillage.

"I do, Momma.  Don't be mad, but I looked."  I dropped the sack.

"You looked?" I asked.  Then, preparing for the worst, I said,  "What was in it?"

"A pretty dress..."

A pretty dress?  What kind of sick trick was this??

"And a cute top with ties."

Huh... I didn't think I had any drama students.

"And a lacy pink blouse."

Had I been pranked by The Queer Guys??

And then my phone dinged and I got a message from my friend Amanda.  And I promptly thanked her for the sack of hand-me-downs she'd left on our front porch.

Paranoid?  You have to be when you're a teacher!