October 24, To smell or not to smell

Before I even walked into the 4-1 classroom, a tidal wave of smell slapped me in the face. There was an overwhelming stench of fresh excrement lingering in the hall which only increased upon my entrance into the classroom.

At first, I thought someone had very impressive flatulence, and then remembered that I have the most impressive flatulence which was somehow still rivaled by the brown cloud swirling in the classroom. Maybe one of the dusty old sewage pipes that doesn’t inspire any confidence finally burst in the ceiling.

As I stood behind the desk still holding my plastic file of textbook and class materials, the students looked at me and said “it smells right?”

I nodded once and then realized that perhaps with this level of stench, someone in the class had an accident and wasn’t speaking up.

I darted out and snagged the homeroom teacher who zeroed in on a quiet girl in the back row.

As I fiddled around with my USB and got the presentation up and running, the teacher was helping the girl up. This poor baby was crying silent tears and she was led out of the classroom, the entire back of her pants stained.

Luckily, that class is pretty well mannered and I’m sure the homeroom teacher will give them a talking to, that we all poop, and that we all have accidents. And that we should be kind.

After dropping off the poor girl in the nurses office, the teacher came back with gloves and sanitary wipes and cleaned the chair and the desk and the floor.

I carried on, singing and reviewing vocabulary as if we hadn’t all witnessed our friend’s liquid embarrassment. Luckily the kids, being good kids, didn’t make a fuss.

I think because of such bad luck in 4-1, my little gremlins in 5–3 were perfectly acceptable. Is it because I yelled at them so sternly last week? Is it because another teacher told them to respect me? Or were they just having a good day? That remains to be seen.

But the lesson was, life is full of checks and balances. And we will all poop our pants at one point or another.