So, it’s been a while since I’ve had any quality time with the 4th graders, as they’ve been having lunch in the cafeteria. Thankfully, there’s a show tonight in that space, so we had classroom lunch, which allowed me more interaction time with them. Out of nowhere today, T decides to tell me that she wants 20 kids.
“Twenty kids?!” I exclaimed. “How are you going to feed all of them?”
She replied, “I dunno,” and giggled.
I proceeded to ask her if she knew how much money that was going to cost. Was she going to marry a rich man? She said she didn’t know, but that her mom’s father had 24 kids, so she was going to have 20. I didn’t really feel it was my place to get into the biological reasons that her grandfather could sire so many, yet she probably wouldn’t be able to keep that pace. At the end of the table, K utters, “I hope you gonna have 20 titties.”
Meanwhile, D said that he was going to have 10 kids, and if they 10th is a girl, he’s going to have another and then stop. HOW he plans to stop, however, is the kicker. He said, “I’m gonna tell her to get her tubes tied.” What?! I couldn’t believe he even knew what that meant. He said, “Yeah, that’s how it works. The woman gets her tubes tied to stop having babies.” I know I shouldn’t have, but I cracked up. I just couldn’t believe the scope of the stuff they were discussing.
K, then, chimes in that he’s going to have 85 kids. He’s all about the oneupsmanship. I told him that he’d never even live long enough to do that. He said, “Oh, did I say 85? I meant 185.” Um, same deal, K. He immediately got bored with this idea, and started flirting with T.
Let me tell you a little something about K. He’s really smart and a cool kid, but a bit of a loner. He likes to sneak off and wander the halls. He’s almost as good as Batman when it comes to elusive exits. I told him I should put a bell on him just to track him. The funny thing about him, though, is that he’s a little Casanova. He’s constantly scheming about hugging the girls in his class. He’ll come up to me and say, “Mr. West, see her? I’m gonna hug her!” And the emphasis he puts on hug makes it seem like it’s the raciest thing he could ever conceieve of. Like, he sneaks up on girls JUST to hug them. It’d be creepy were it not so cute. The girls never really know how to handle it, since he’s such a loner, but they’re all also still in the “cootie phase”. It IS the 4th grade.
Anyway, K decides to start flirting with T about her plan to have 20 kids. He said, “That means you gonna have to do this every day”. At this point, he stretches his arms out in front, and starts doing these power thrusts like something out of an 80s aerobics class. Again, I cracked up, while T as telling him to stop that. Since I couldn’t leave well enough alone, I asked him if what he as imitating as skiing. He said, “No, skiing’s like this”, and proceeded to mime a pretty good ski job. Then, he immediately went right back to the power thrusts, which lead T to hit him in the arm. T, then, tells me, “If my husband just sits on the couch, watching TV, I’m gonna kick him outta my house and get a divorce!”
K comes over to me and indicates he has a secret to tell me. I bend down, and he whispers, “You know T’s supposed to be my girlfriend?” I said, “Well, it seems like you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
As I’m about to leave, K says, “Mr West, I’mma kiss her so hard her lips gonna fall off!” I cracked up as I left the room, but it might be time to send a letter home…
