stink bomb

it all started yesterday when my metrocard expired and i tried to get the machine to renew it. after six or seven tries i finally gave up and asked the attendant in the train station to make me a new card. she did, tossing it out, letting me know it's not generally her job to do things. then some guy on the bus was freaking out so i got out and walked a while. i walked under the f train and thought about what i always thought about. one of these days something will fly off that stupid train and crack open my skull. and to my surprise, something actually did fly off the stupid train and it slapped me right on the face, leaving a faint scratch on my cheek. certainly not a cracked skull, but as unexpected as something can be when you're expecting it to happen.

when i finally got to school the day went pretty well, but on the way home i realized the metro card i'd spent $25 on early in the morning had somehow escaped. no metrocard. perhaps the trains are conspiring to get me. stupid trains.

but then this morning i was feeling good. my first class was mellow and focused. good kids. my second class appears to have been possessed by a clump of incredibly lazy demons lacking in creativity. two hours of one child sleeping, one child hooting (no, really, i mean actual hooting like an owl would do if an owl wanted to fail my class), one child interrupting (every sentence. every single sentence), thirty two children talking when they should have been listening so that they had to ask a million questions when they should have been working. one child had to be removed by the dean. another had to leave and come back twice. and then there was the stink bomb. some goofball sent a sulfurous smell into the hallway outside our classroom. vile. toxic. eggy. the children whined. i considered reminding them they've all created stinks far worse than what we were suffering, but i know memory isn't reliable. they would never believe me. finally, i went back to my desk, grabbed a bag of yarn (what? you don't have a random bag of yarn at your desk?) and began to shove skeins into the crack under the door to block the stink. it was about this time our principal opened the door, stepping over the scattered yarn with a curious look on his face as one of the precious angels was being escorted toward the door. "what's going on?" he asked. i have no idea. none at all. madness, probably.

but that's not the best part. i was standing in the doorway on the second floor, waiting for those diabolical tenth graders to show up. one came running up yelling, "ms. white, there's a stink bomb!" and a cluster of kids parted to show a tiny, brightly colored pillow of mylar swirling about on the floor. now, there are things i know and things i don't. i know that when i was in high school, several boys stuffed a dead opossum behind a radiator over the winter holiday and the school took quite some time to recover. but i don't know stink bombs. so i asked a child nearby to hand it to me. he picked it up with a look on his face i can't even begin to explain but i'll try anyway. he looked like he knew he was going to get to see someone die. hmmmm. one of my own kids yelled, "no!" and i took it into the classroom, explaining (wrongly, i might add) that the little puff was clearly pressure sensitive, something that would explode when stepped on. the kids were freaking out. screaming. howling. "throw it out the window! please!!!!! it's gonna explode!!!!" i walked toward the window, starting to think i should take them seriously. their faces were more serious than anything i'd ever seen. i held my hand out the window and just before i was able to let go, i felt the concussion from the explosion. it was incredible. no, i mean that. it was fascinating to have something explode in my hand without removing the hand right off my body. i pulled my hand in as the stink began to waft back in. someone closed the window. this was the third or fourth stink bomb today. most days don't have any.

on my way back up to the fourth floor for my last class, i could smell the stink of yet another bomb suffocating the stairwell so when i finally got to four, i walked to the window at the end of the hall. these hallway and stairwell windows have grates over them, steel lattice to keep the kids in i guess or keep them from throwing things or maybe each other out. this particular window works just like storm windows in my house with little sliding levers a person can operate with a thumb. or two. so i slipped my thumbs under the grate and slid the levers to the side. and it turns out this window is somehow springloaded because without any force at all of my own the window flew up behind the grate and my thumbs went up with it. unfortunately, they were still attached to me and i was on the other side of the immovable steel grate. it took what seemed like a very long time for my brain to realize it would have to tell my body to pull both hands down and drag my trapped thumbs out from between the window and the grate, from a space much smaller than the fatness of my thumbs. finally, though, my brain did this and my body did as it was told and my thumbs scraped themselves down the grate and out into freedom. as i type they are bruised and throbbing. two mangled thumbs is rare and awful.

and then i began to hear the stories. they were magnificent. there were versions of my stink bomb explosion that had me mangled, deformed, a veritable phantom of the opera (or school). i am thinking about getting a cape. wearing a mask. sporting a cane. and possibly thumb casts or slings. but really, truly, what i want is to learn to make stink bombs. because i know i could do a better job than a high school kid. and wouldn't that sort of knowledge come in handy next time someone is asleep in my class?