Rodent Escapades

Never in a thousand years would I imagine that I would have ANOTHER blogworthy moment in my new job so soon!  And it's AMAZING.

I had just gotten out of an interview for a new staff member when I heard the front office calling for a custodian needed in a fourth grade classroom on the radio.  I ignored it and started back to "my" office, but one of the ladies in the front office said that I should also go to the fourth grade room.  Um, why?  Because there was a MOUSE in the closet!  Clearly, I was the woman for the job.

So I booked it down to the room and saw the custodian coming out the door.  I asked him if he had caught the mouse, and he said no.  He was going to call the exterminator.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Okay, I have a soft spot for mices.

The mouse, who was scared out of its little mouse brain, was hiding in the closet.  I carefully took some of the stuff out of the bottom of the closet, which of course just made the mouse panic even more.  When I tried to grab it, it jumped out of my hands and ran out the door of the classroom.  Now we have mouse on the loose in the hallway.  By this time, the other custodian had joined in the Great Mouse Hunt, so there were three adults running after this teeny little mouse.  Kids are watching through the doors of the classrooms as we dive on the floor trying to grab it, probably laughing at our lack of grace and skill at mouse-catching.  I cornered it, but it kept jumping out of my grasp.  I was worried that it was either going to run under the door to another classroom, or run down my pants.  Finally, one of the custodians executed some crazy ninja moves (seriously--I have never seen the like) and trapped the mouse in a plastic container.  She then immediately handed it off to me.  I, of course, took its picture:

No, I did not keep it as a pet, even though it was super-cute.  I took it outside and set it free in the field behind the school.  It scampered away, much relieved to be free.  At least until 8:00 when it can slip back inside the building.

A New Adventure

As some of you may know, I am currently acting as the middle school dean at my school while the real one is out on maternity leave. So unfortunately, I am not in the classroom overhearing random gems of seventh-grade wisdom currently.  I am discovering, however, that there's a wealth of other places to overhear crazy stuff within the school building and its outskirts.  Perhaps that's because the crazy follows me around--whatever.  Point is, there's still good material out there.

For today's anecdote, some background information is necessary.  The admin team is learning how to handle all the paperwork related to students who are not native English speakers.  As a newbie, I had NO idea how much work is involved in testing, monitoring, and tutoring these students.  There were lots of acronyms being thrown around which meant nothing to us.  Thankfully we have lots of people who are trying to help us through the process, but it was still a painful dose of reality.  After two hours of feeling frustrated and stupid, my ADD got the better of me and I had to stand up to take a walk.  My walk took me past the table with all the random free stuff that teachers dump in the lounge.

Me:  OOOOOOH!  A dinosaur book!  With cardboard models you can build!  Why was I not informed about this?  (snatches book gleefully)

My Boss:  And this is why we need all the help we can get with this stuff.

Okay, my presence may actually be the common equation here....