Like a good neighbor...

Today I was nearly bested in battle by a Diet Dr. Pepper bottle, but in case you're getting worried I can assure you that the story ends happily, so don't freak out or anything. So, to accompany my lunch, I bought a bottle of pop from the pop machine, and yes I'm going to keep saying "pop" no matter how many people look at me funny, because as I discussed yesterday, I'm used to people looking at me funny. And I got the bottle back to my office, which I ordinarily share with about 73 other people, but was lucky enough to have to myself this afternoon, or at least I THOUGHT I was lucky until I tried to open the pop and it wouldn't budge. Ok, so I might have the grip of an arthritic 80 year old, and so I tried to loosen it using my fork, and I accomplished separating the top from that plastic ring part, but it still wouldn't turn, not even a little bit. So then I came at it with both stapler and hole puncher and possible tried throwing it at the wall and/or feeding it to alligators, and really wishing my sometimes annoying and always plentiful office mates were around so that I would know I wasn't crazy.

But then I brought the bottle to class and passed it around to many burly PhD students, none of whom could make any headway and I felt less crazy, but also a little more crazy because they were like "Did you CHEW on it?" because of the hole punching marks and I had to be like "Um, no, did you?" And then I brought it home and stalwart Houseboy had no luck, so I took it outside and hit it with a hammer until the top flew off and rocketed across the yard, along with half the pop, and I laughed and then realized that one of the nurses who works at the clinic next door was having a smoke break and staring at me wielding a hammer and a half-full bottle of pop and wearing my pajamas, and when I told Houseboy, he said "She didn't know they were your pajamas," and I said, "So, she thinks this is how I dress. That's better."

And all in all, it was Klassy with a Kapital K, and I'm happy to report that I'm now drinking some semi-flat diet Dr. Pepper and reading articles about teachers' practices in tracked classrooms as compared to heterogeneous grouping and feeling very very proud of myself and only a little damp.

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