First things first: the above photo? I’m printing it in size 20 x 24 and hanging it on my office door.

Onward.

Before anyone who knows me mentions it, I’d like to clarify that yes, I realize that the long-windedness of my 10-year-old is payback.

Yesterday I asked how her day was. I should have begun the question with, “In 4 sentences or less…”

“Well first,” she began, “I walked into the classroom and…oh wait…before that I was at the drinking fountain, and…”

I kind of zoned out at this point, I admit. Because I knew it would be at least an hour before she announced the arrival of the 4-minute intermission during which I could get a snack.

36 or so minutes later, my ears happened to tell my brain to direct my attention back to Grace just before she said, “…because she’s the teacher in charge of kids with anger management issues.”

“I’m sorry, what? There is a teacher who actually has, as a subset of her job description, ‘In charge of kids with anger management issues’?”

“Yeah,” continued Grace “and she’s real important. Let me tell ya.”

“You mean there are a lot of kids with anger management issues in your class?”

“Well, yeah. There really are.”

“My class has the same problem,” piped in Jack. “And I feel really bad for Miss Sucks-To-Be-Her (no, that’s not her real name, but that’s what I’ll call her so I don’t get sued) because today, this kid in my class (whose name Jack told me but I won’t repeat…so I don’t get sued) told her to ‘talk to the hand’ when she asked him to sit down.”

“Literally!” said Henry, eyes bulging as he recreated his shock over the incident, “He said that!”

During the 90 seconds in which Jack and Henry were educating me on the anger-management issues that plague a few select 2nd-graders, Grace was still telling her story.

“…so bizarre, right?”

Totally.

I wonder, what qualifications must a teacher have to be deemed the Anger Management specialist on the side?

*Featured photo credit goes to marganz