This morning, I had Cheerios for breakfast. Eight Cheerios, to be exact. And I pooped half as many times as that before heading out the door at 6:55 a.m.
Such are the medical dangers of being a yearbook adviser. Especially now, during peak "Yearbook Stomach" season.
And you thought it was all fame and fortune for me!
On most days of any given year, I'm a perfectly reasonable person. I know, for instance, that there is no such thing as the bogey man and that no harm will come to me simply because I drink straight from the milk jug.
But, come mid May, I am transformed into a paranoid, tic-riddled maniac. It's a quiet, Tums-tinged mania, albeit, but a mania just the same. During those few weeks, I wake in a cold sweat, imagining the junior-class pages drying together at the Walsworth plant down in Marceline, Missouri. By mid May, I startle at loud sounds, certain an angry mother has brought some Smith-and-Wesson justice my way, after misspelling her daughter MaKenZy's name on page 83.
After all the blood, sweat and tears that my students pour into this book--which is just homework bound in a hardback cover--I have to feign my excitement for the big day. While my students are anxiously counting down the days until we rip open all 63 boxes of books, I am beside myself to keep down my lunch.
Apparently, I'm more of a people pleaser than I'd care to admit. All I have to do is imagine an angry parent and my pulse picks up. And every year brings those unsatisfied customers that somehow forgot that the yearbook is the product of a class FILLED WITH TEENAGERS, for God's sake, and a teacher who thinks Chic jeans are fashionable!
Just last year, one particularly persnickety mother pummeled me with unpleasant emails because her daughter--a freshman!--wasn't listed in that section of the yearbook. The mom digitally bullied me to the point of asking if I'd ever heard of No Child Left Behind. . . Apparently, the yearbook she helped produce in 1986 was perfect.
Other moms have told me that they "want names," which is code for "I'm going to hunt down those students who intentionally omitted my son from the Teenage Mutant Turtles club pic AND THEY WILL PAY!!!"
In a yearbook, a misspelling isn't just a simple slip of the fingers on the keyboard. It's war. And God help you if you mix up the names underneath the mugshots.
I seldom tell my students about these incidents, beyond making a plan for how we can avoid ever talking to these parents again. I figure they busted their buns and I can fall on a grenade or two for them, especially since malice has never once been the reason behind our errors.
And so today, when Eric and Allison brought home their Lincoln High yearbooks? I could not help but laugh when Allison discovered that she was referred to as Allison Holf not once BUT TWICE on the same page!
Oh yeah. My friend Greg is going to hear about that! Specifically, at the bar, when I buy him his congratulatory beer for a job well done!
Ok...now I feel bad for all the complaining I did every year when I got my yearbook as a kid.
ReplyDeleteI think your class does an amazing job every year. If everything was spelled perfectly and there were no mix ups, there would be no character! Also, with the way most people spell these days, nobody will notice.