And when I thought I had seen it all~

Hi everyone and just a short addendum to this morning's blog post about what it is like to live in the place the history books refer to as the "west".  I wrote about what it is like to notice all the differences that there are way out here compared to my life in the midwest in my home state of Kansas.  From the mountains and mesas all around us, to people who align themselves with the cowboy lifestyle right down to their boots and cowboy hats, to the fact that I voted last evening using a ballot whose first question had to do with how to tax the sale of recreational marijuana, I've found myself immersed in the lifestyle of this state, my new home of Colorado.  I was sure that I had seen it all but oh man, was I ever wrong about that.  

School was off to a bit of a rough start this morning and I expected it to fully be the case.  Every single one of my 18 fourth grade students had been out on the city streets of Olathe, Delta and Montrose last evening gathering in every single bit of candy that they could find. As a teacher, I'm so glad that Halloween comes but once a year and even better is if it falls on a Friday or Saturday.  But we were making the best of it despite the fact that all of them were still coming down from their self-inflicted "sugar high".  I decided that the best thing I could do to calm them all down was to read to them from our current book, "Out of the Dust", before we got the day started.  For a couple of minutes, it seemed to work like a charm and because they love that book, the entire room became quiet and the only sound was my voice as I read the story to them.  And then, well then it happened!

Out of the blue I heard a young girl's voice shriek  as she yelled "Mrs. Renfro help me!  There's a scorpion on my desk!"  What the heck had she just said to me?  Did she just say that a scorpion was on her desk?  As I turned towards her I discovered that, holy cow, there indeed was a scorpion on her desk!  What in the world had just happened?  How on earth did an arthropod make it inside of our classroom?  And shoot, forget about how it got into our room.  How in the heck was I going to get it out of there? 

Gonna tell you that it was a first for me in 36 years of teaching.  Sure I've had to kill a spider or two and actually I've even shooed a mouse of out my classroom once with a broom.  But a scorpion?  NEVER!  I had no idea how to catch it and quite honestly he was moving right along on that desk top because the truth is that he was as scared of us as we were of him.   If I was going to do something with it, the time had to be right now so I took a sheet of paper, scooped him up into it and quickly folded it down like an envelope.  But now what?  

Because I have no love lost for critters like these, I figured the best thing to do was to unceremoniously flush him down the toilet in the girl's restroom just across the hall.  I hated to even have to open up the "envelope" to let him out.  I had seen his tail being raised in anger and I'm pretty sure he was absent from Sunday School when they taught the lesson about "loving thy neighbor as thyself."  But just as I opened up the door to take out for the restroom, who would appear out of the blue than my good friend and fellow teacher, Joe Chiddick.  I took one look at him and said, "Oh Mr. Chiddick do I EVER need your help!"  I told him what was in the envelope and asked him if he would help me to dispose of it.  Because he is a man of honour and integrity, he said yes and as I passed the "package" off to him, I breathed a sigh of relief that our 19th student for the day was out of my hands now and being delivered from his affliction by a fellow teacher that I have great respect for.  

It was kind of hard to get things going again for a while but I continued to read the book to them for several minutes more.  Surprisingly they calmed down rather quickly but the more I read to them, the more absurd the notion became apparent of what had just happened to us all.  I put the book down and tried to fight off the urge to die laughing but it was to no avail.  I laughed so hard that tears came to my eyes and between the laughter I got out the words, "My friends in Kansas are not going to believe this, not in a million years!"  

We ended up the day with no more interruptions and it was surely the truth that I didn't want to even try to top that incident!  Hard telling what the stories will sound like as they begin to tell their parents what happened today.  One thing for sure is that I would prefer to never entertain one of those critters again but if I should, I will always know what to do.  For the record, it appears as though the scorpion caught a ride to school either in the backpack or sweatshirt of the young lady whose desk it was running across.  Suffice it to say that she won't be forgetting this day any too soon either.  Life is exciting and there is never even close to a dull moment.  I live in the West.

Good night everyone!  You probably don't need to worry about checking your bed for scorpions tonight, but I think that WE might :)

Joe Chiddick, my hero for the day!  Joe and I have a lot in common.  He flunked retirement even worse than I did.  Joe has been a teacher for well over 40 years now after having retired from the state of Michigan.  He and his wife make their home now in the Montrose area.

Safe at home tonight with really no worry about anything.  My teacher "book of life" just had a new chapter added to it today.