Poor Big Big, I should mention, is not the only Machiato family member hard up for a job these days. After the traditional culmination of Yom Kippur services this year... the tearful announcement by my mother that were broke... everyone but my dad has been forced to look for work.
Now, when I got into Columbia, I was promised I was going to be treated like the five year old I act like and not forced to work. That’s out the window now though, since my mother has managed to blow through most of my fathers pension collecting overpriced, fat house pets and oversized handbags with clowns of them.
She would go back to work herself, except she refuses to work at a boring job or for people younger than her, dumber than her... and I think there were a few other reasonable stipulations like they couldn't be blonde or like the color green. Needless to say, she will be remaining unemployed. I give her about a week to find a way to blame this on diabetes.
I tried to do my part... I applied dot be a substitute teacher. It’s related to the career I’m pursuing, and it doesn’t involve me taking my clothes off, so all of my criteria were met. Of course, the agency I went through placed me on my very first (and very last) day.... at Anoosh’s kid Bailey’s school.
I suppose this shouldn't come as a surprise. It’s perfectly in line with the creul-irony as performance art that is my day to day existence. Still, when the time came, I was shaking like a leaf. The entire evening before I had nightmares about the substitute teachers we had in middle school. This one guy, Mr. Gentile, covered our seventh grade science class. Two hours of calling him “Mr. Genital” later, and he fled the room in tears. It was ugly.
The first class was fine... the kids were creepily well behaved. Like, Village of the Damned well behaved. I was starting to think the day was going to be ok. Then second period hit, and the polite little fifth graders were replaced by a sniveling, over hormonal group of preteens.
Oh my goodness. nothing on earth could have prepared me for this. All they did the whole class was say dirty words and then giggle, egg each other on, try to top each others inappropriate comments... they didn’t understand ‘no’, they didn’t understand ‘stop’, they DEFINITELY didn’t understand ‘don’t touch’.... it was pretty much like being put in charge of a room full of miniature ibankers.
The classes went downhill from there. I started the day with a strict ‘no biting’ policy, and ended it with a slightly more relaxed ‘if you must bite, I’d prefer you bite each other instead of me’ policy. The day culminated with me subbing for an 8th grade science class learning about venereal disease, which was nice because it allowed me to open the class with ‘if you have any questions... it’s probably illegal for me to answer them so just don't ask me.’
I ran into Bailey only once, when he grilled me about my inexplicable presence in his school. He definitely suspected sabotage, and could not be dissuaded from this notion. I came home and curled up in the fetal position until I had the strength to drink away the memories. I look forward to a promising career in education.
