Picture Day

Picture day is a pretty big deal. As a teacher it is a lot of pressure. This picture is how you will be remembered by your students forever. Thirty years from now they will be talking to their children about you and they will pull out the old class picture and whamo! There you are. Big nose, poofy hair and wacky grin, or a picture of loveliness. I of course want to be remembered in a kind way, so I try a little harder on picture day to capture that look of loveliness. Now, I'm a thinker and since I had bus duty the day of pictures, I went down to have my picture taking before school started. I guess most teachers are thinkers because three other teachers appeared out of nowhere for pictures as well. We walked in to the picture lady, she smiled and asked teacher number one her name and then, click, click, took her picture. Teacher number two name, click, click, picture; teacher number three name, click, click, picture and then me. I'm sure you can guess something would go wrong, of course without it there is no story. And so I walked up to the picture lady, she smiled at me and said, "Teacher or student." Now let me remind you I teach at an elementary school. The top of the line is sixth grade, that is twelve. (I blame this all on being short. I'm not sure why being short automatically makes you a kid, but for me it does.) I smiled at her using my best oh this is not awkward at all look and said "Teacher." With that vote of confidence I got my picture taken, we can hope for the best, but at least there are retakes. As I walked back down the hall a mom met me to give me her child's picture money. I thought this was a pretty funny story, so I began telling her about it. After I finished I waited for her cue, You know the part where she would say,"You've got to be kidding me, you don't look like a kid." and then we would laugh and I would tell her about how my moisturizer must work wonders on getting rid of any wrinkles. Instead she said, "Well you know the other day when you came walking out with my son to talk to me, I thought to myself, who is this girl with Matt, Does he have a little girlfriend." There you have it, the story of life as a sixth grader.