Tennis Ball

I'm back at work after a lovely summer spent gardening and painting and writing and blogging and going to the beach and entertaining Houseguests and playing video games. Now I spend all day putting tennis balls on chair legs, in the Great Public School Teacher Tradition. My district is one of the wealthiest in the country. We have a lot of Promethean boards. But we don't have decent chairs or desks or tables. As in:

Our chairs are missing feet.

The solution to that, and to the horrid feet scratching against the floor noise as the children stand up incessantly, is to put tennis balls on the feet of the chairs. Last year I was the new teacher, and I wasn't in the same room all day, and I didn't have enough chairs, let alone tennis balls. There was nary a tennis ball in either of my rooms. There may have been like, one and a half. This year I'm in the same room all day, which is so wonderful I am trembling with delight as I type. Furthermore, someone was supposed to teach in my room during my planning periods, which would have been kind of a bummer because I'd have to vacate and find a computer to work at and such. But she got moved to some other classroom because she didn't want to be on the second floor.

In celebration of being in one classroom all day, I splurged and ordered 128 tennis balls from some bulk tennis ball web site. I paid for them myself and figured I would do that educator tax thing. Of course, then somebody came onto School (cannot actually name school) private group list (Is that what you call these things?) and said he had a zillion tennis balls for whoever wanted them. So, I guess I'll return mine.

When I went to get the tennis balls, he (we can call him Robert) told me how to cut them. You have to cut them to get the hole to put the leg of the chair in. Obvs. We were in Robert's classroom. He was teaching some kind of science. His eighth graders remembered me and started waving at me and trying to pretend they hadn't hated me last year, in that way they do. Somehow this makes them seem cool, to each other. I have no idea.

"Do you have a blade?" Robert asked me.

Self: um.
Robert: For cutting the tennis balls.
Self: oh.
Robert: Here, you can borrow mine. (Hands over knife)
Self: Thanks?
Andrew (8th grader): (Shouting and jumping up and down) Hi, Ms. S!
Robert: If you, by chance, touch this part of the knife, the blade will fall out. So be careful.
Self: Yes.
Lucy (8th grader): (Bellowing and standing up from chair) Did you have a good summer, Ms. S?
Self: Hi, Andrew. Yes, thank you, Lucy. (to Robert) Thanks?
Robert: Cut a small hole and then just kinda force them on there. If the hole's too big, they'll just fall off. It's easier if you cut along the seam. Oh, and don't tell the students that I have a blade.
Self: um?
Robert: (Whispering) Really, don't tell.
Self: You do realize they're here, don't you?
Robert: Oh! Indeed. Goodbye, Ms. S! Have fun with my PRETEND knife!
Gaston, Christian, Melissa, and Oliver (8th graders): (Together, as if to celebrity, while leaping over desks to bar the door) Ms. S!!! Don't go!!!

When I arrived back in my own classroom, I spent my entire two back to back planning periods and lunch (about two hours) with tennis balls. Somehow, I don't think this is what is meant by "planning." I got a blister on my hand. The knife was dull and weak, in that way that manages to slice a hole in your shirt (and your stomach) anyway. I got a few cuts. It is hard to slice a hole in a tennis ball with a box cutter! Who knew? In my two hours, I did maybe 12. I kept doing it through periods six and seven because my students were taking a pre-test. By the end of the day, I had 20.

                       Progress?

This page turning story reminds me of Ari, because he says, when referring to tennis, "tennis ball." As in, he calls the game of tennis "tennis ball." As in, he will say, "oh, mommy! That boy takes tennis ball lessons!" And he will say, "Mommy!! Mommy! It is the US Open! Do you want to watch tennis ball?" Be still my heart, right? I mean. He does this, obvs, because of basketball and football. For some reason, he understands that soccer is just "soccer" and that bowling is just "bowling." All I know is that it is a good thing I wasn't thinking about Ari saying "tennis ball" while I was cutting mine up, because I would've been so besotted I'd have sliced my arm off.

The end.