And I always say, "Oh, it's not so bad. They're just kids. You just have to not take their behavior personally."
Of course, when some little sociopath throws your car keys in the trash, it's kind of hard to defend them. Or not take it personally.
Yes, that's right. My fault, I admit, for leaving them within reach. And you know what? the kids all knew I was looking for them. Some were even helping me look. Among them was at least one kid who knew where they were, or maybe s/he threw them in on the way out.
My afternoon classes are interesting; a interesting potpourri of kids with academic, emotional, legal and psychiatric issues. Several students are not allowed to leave class for any reason without an escort and the rest have to go to the bathroom one right after another after sucking down their lunch-time Red Bulls. So, in the middle of class I've taken to just taking the entire class to the bathroom, like in kindergarten. I count them before we go, before we leave the bathroom area, and after we get back.
And it was right after this that I set my keys down on a table instead of putting them back in the locked filing cabinet where I keep my things, and poof! there they're weren't.
Once class had ended, and I sent them home, I got to thinking about how hard it would be to explain a large ring of keys, including car keys, to your parents. I got the idea of looking in the trash, and there they were: near the bottom under paperwads in the pencil shavings. I picked them up, and shook them off and went to my message appointment.
All the way there, I was listening to Amy Winehouse, just kind of shaking my head in amazement and then mumbling to myself, "m****erf***er" at the kind of kid that cannot conceive of how their behavior affects others.
And people ask me why I run.
Oh, and guess what, I am now officially Marathon Maniac #831!
As if it needed to be "official."
...
