Mutiny and Martha ( a wannabe story)....

I had it in my mind to do an old fashioned home economics class with the loveables.

Button sewing, ironing creases in dress pants and shirt sleeves.

Sharp lines and clean looking and how to get that way.

I'd add a bit about the proper way to sort a load of laundry.

How to remember to clean out your pockets before you toss your things into the washer.

(on a side note... teacher, may want to teach thyself, yo. Some dummy at my house washes things that shouldn't be washed all the damn time)

I'd talk to them about keeping themselves safe while cooking, how not to sicken themselves with raw meat juices, how to put out a grease fire and how to know when the milk has gone sour.

Hot damn, I was on to something.

I was feeling really full of myself planning this class out, minute by delicious minute, in my head.

What the loveable's mothers (grandmothers, guardians) had failed to teach them about basic house keeping, mending, cooking... all the old fashioned Marthy Stewert-ery type things I was going to step right up and enlighten them.

I would do such a good job that one day, maybe 50 years from now, a reformed loveable would be showing a grandson how to sew on a button.

How to iron a shirt, and properly clean a toilet.

And he'd have me to thank.

I found myself on the morning of the class not as prepared as I should have (or would have liked to have) been, I also found myself having to take half a day off work to attend a doctor appointment with a loved one.

(that's how life rolls sometimes... a chink in the already chinked up armor)

As the day wore on and I wasn't making much progress in my planning I came to the (not so startling) conclusion that I must really like flying by the seat of my pants since I seem to do it so often..

(my attempted pep talk to myself in the car on the way in sounded a bit like this...just get r' done.... just do it....fake it till you make it...crap, I'm going to have call in dead).

Man, I was screwed.

I had no choice other than to go ahead with what I had (not) planned.

People who work with juvenile offenders know that these dawgs smell fear...

I came in to class smellin to high heaven.

Reeked may be a better word.

After clearing my throat for five straight minutes, and taking up about ten more shifting from leg to leg trying to see which was more comfortable to rest on I was ready to launch into an introduction of my juicy subject matter.

Right off the bat one particularly surly loveable had a nice thought he wanted to share with me and the entire group (of very suggestible youth)

"Are you freakin kidding me, what a waste of my time, this is paaa-thet-ic" he hollered when I told them what we'd be doing this day in Life Skills class.

"Please sir, be respectful" I said, then added "who is your PO?"

The loveables don't like being asked that question.

I usually don't go any further than just asking...them not knowing why I'm asking is usually enough to get them squirming in their seats,

and when they're squirming in their seats they shut their traps.

(hey, don't judge...whatever it takes people, being on the front line with these hooligans can sometimes be a thankless hard ass job and some days you gotta do whatcha gotta do)

"Okay, Mr" I say "you know how to do this, well then, here ya go" and I tossed on his desk some material, a spool of thread, a needle, a pair of scissors and all my confidence.

"Go ahead, sew on that button" I challenged him.

He did, in record time.

He also sewed on the next one I tossed him, and the one after that too.

Even the one with the loop on the underneath.

Flawlessly, the loveable thug sewed the buttons on the material.

The others followed suit, and with the exception of one youth they had their buttons done in about 3 minutes flat.

Then they began to grumble and wiggle in their seats.

The looked out the window and pulled out their phones and looked at them low in their laps where they thought I wouldn't notice them texting.

I tried to pull all kinds of useful information from my ass, tried to remember all the things that I wanted to tell them about,  but the little guy on my shoulder had different plans.

He rudely kept pointing out that the children were bored and totally uninterested and he wouldn't stop telling me to put a lid on it.

At one point, because I was trying so hard not to listen, he decided to scream in my ear about my shitty class and my lack of proper planning.

I knew in my heart I was washed up,

and then I choked up,

and with nothing left but a hairy arm up my sleeve, I was forced to throw in the towel.

And feed them brownies.

I so freaking hate it when they do that to me... (and I let them)


Loveable thugs 1

BethKoby (one TOTALLY unprepared, confidence lacking, ink pen washer) 0