Hold on...one day with the dead to go

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HOLD ON! We have only 8 school days till Thanksgiving.

"I think I can. I think I can," is the chant of the champions.   The only problem we have with these 8 days is one of them...well three of them include the annual district mandatory field trip.  I cannot think of a worse fate.

The powers that be thought that the 7th graders would benefit from a day in the woods walking on wilderness trails, observing research ponds (don't get excited...it is a mud pit that the kids fall into) and then spend some time in a settlement cemetery. On paper it probably looked good.

Imagine if you will....
Your boss saying next week we want you to stand in a cemetery for 8 hours with no bathroom and make sure the students don't trash the oldest settlement in the area. Oh, and it will be surrounded in poison ivy, and poison oak.  If you are really lucky you will see some of the hundreds of poisonous snakes.  I am not even kidding.  This is my fate for next Thursday.

Last year I had nightmares for two months.  "They," the wily woodsmen that work at this hell hole, informed us that when we see a snake...(you caught that right?  When? What in the...)...we are to stay still and slowly walk away backwards.  My dear friend was one of the "lucky" to run into one of these reptilian monsters of the deep backwoods.  She screamed for her life and ran like a crazy lady, throwing elbows the entire way nearly knocking two darlings to their death.  I asked her about it later she informed me, "They need to pay attention when they in the woods."  I nodded in complete agreement.

Another teacher friend had a student with diabetes in her group. She had to be "trained" before being assigned to him.  Half way down the trail the little darling had a drop in blood sugar.  The symptoms had her pretty freaked out...she had to ditch her group on the trail and run with the student back to the main picnic area to do urine test and administer insulin.  The other little lost darlings had to be chased down by the other teachers on the trail to be assimilated into their groups.

Everyone survived, so the district called the mandate a raging success.  They didn't see the snake. Nor did they see my friend's red face when she was trying to get the kid to take his insulin, a phone clutched to her ear talking to the nurse at school, and her delicate brow moist from the jog.

I know...I can hear you...but you safaried in Africa what is a few hours in a cemetery?  I was only responsible for me there.  I am handful enough without having to watch preteens bubbling with hormones bent on "having a good time" in the woods.  

I think I will hit play on Youtube..."I will survive" is on...I will survive.  Hope the little darlings make it.