Me and John Denver? BFF.

That’s right, ya’ll.  I’m gonna be in charge of imparting literature and knowledge to the next generation. 

*(a moment of silence for you to all digest that startling fact…  Or to indulge in maniacal laughter.  Whatever strikes you as apropos.)*

 I’m taking the John Denver job.  Which, I gather, means that I will be a mountain mama.  And a school marm.  It’s been quite a day.

They’re letting me come as a lateral entry candidate, meaning that they do not care, particularly, that I am not licensed, bonded nor insured to teach persons under 18.  It means I’m the bag lady of teachers.  I hang onto my position with all my might from this point out, crazily swinging cats at people if necessary, because I’m not totally, 100% legally considered fit for classroom consumption. 

I will be teaching the Senior AP course (an overcrowded class consisting of 14 students), a regular senior group (a whopping 20 students) and one 10th grade section (my REALLY big class — 23 kids).  In my spare time, I will be hiking, training eagles to sit upon my shoulders, playing a banjo and showing locals how to operate indoor plumbing.  Field trips will consist of taking the kids “to town” [read: the closest town also happens to be the actual town which inspired Mayberry from the Andy Griffith Show] or hanging out at 4-H meetings, considering the various levels of froth in cow milk. 

I’m joking.  It’s actually a lovely community and very beautiful.  If it’s rural, it’s not belligerently or ignorantly so.  Frankly, I cannot believe my good fortune in them being willing to hire me.  First of all, I’m not a certified teacher.  I will have to take the PRAXIS this summer and get licenced and all that on their time, since I cannot remain at bag lady status forever, sadly.  Second of all, I am going to be leaving town on Friday to go sinfully indulge in Las Vegas fun, sun and booze for a week instead of rightfully preparing to actually impart useful knowledge to my students this fall.  And finally, today I had to break it to them that I am, in point of fact, a former felon.  That pesky DUI on my record is bound to show up during the criminal background check, so I called the dept. head as a friendly head’s up.  It was fine, though.  Unless you diddle children, North Carolina school boards are remarkably forgiving over what they kept forcefully referring to as my “youthful indiscretion.”  The principal jovially commented that everyone was “allowed just one big mistake.”  Just one, folks.  Better hold me down.   

What else happened on this wondrous day?  The day I finally became a teacher — what I’ve always wanted to be, and no crappy teacher of 9th grade remedial studies, either.  If it were set in terms of kindergarten reading group categorizations, baby, I’d be teaching the Hawks, vs. the Pigeons or the One-Winged Flopsies, or whatever they cruelly named the slow group. 

Well, I managed to forget to turn in a disc from a rather nasty DVD I checked out from the Wake library, about the “history” of porn (it was actually a thinly veiled attempt to show lots of porn scenes using a flimsy historical, Discovery-channelish set-up as a respectable disguise… not only are Stephen and I kinky, but we’re also cheap, preferring the library’s crappy X-rated offerings to actually paying for our jollies).  I turned in the case, but left a dvd in the machine (yeah, it took ‘em two discs to go through the whole “history”).  Which meant that after I got the happy call that I was, in fact, employable and still beloved (non-certified, slacking, DUI-riddled ass and all), I then got a call from Peter at the library, snidely saying:

“Hey pervert.  You forgot to bring back ALL your dirty, dirty porn.  Can you maybe see fit to wipe the baby batter off our dvd and bring it back?  SOME of us would also like to check out the ’history’ of pornography.  Thanks.”     

That’s not verbatim, but you get the idea.  Add to that, I got the calls while lazily sunbathing on Davis Field (my ghetto tanning salon), so I returned said-porn wearing shorts and a bikini top.  With my dog in tow.  Thank God my school’s county is a good 45 minute drive away.  I doubt I looked the respectable marm at any point this entire day.