Wednesday, December 20, 2006

The Lights Are On and Somebody's Home

I just got home a little bit ago. I'd tell you where I was but you'd laugh at me.

Oh, okay, I'll give you a hint: Wednesday night is "All-You-Can-Eat" night at Grecco's Pizza. (made to order for your individual table!) It's getting colder outside (only to be expected; it couldn't stay in the sixties in December, it just couldn't!) and it's raining lightly, and I had to wear a coat for the first time in weeks, and it was dark and gloomy and it was really, really nice to sit down in the tiny slice-of-pie-shaped restaurant amidst the hordes of starving greedy cheapskates like me. There's something about cold dark weather that makes me crave Grecco's pizza. Meeting good friends there made the evening even better, and there is no pizza on this earth that is as good as Grecco's, especially since some moron at Noble Roman's headquarters decided to change the recipe for their formerly delicious pizza sauce.

As we were driving home, we noticed several Public Service, or whatever their name is now, trucks along the road, blinking away. Bad sign. As we got closer to our house, we noticed that all the houses were dark, very dark. Another bad sign.

As we pulled into our driveway, we noticed that our house was dark, too. We wondered how we were going to get into the house, since the garage door wouldn't be working. We searched our pockets and purses for a house key. We found one.

As I was standing in front of the door, key in hand, the lights came back on. I heard Hub laugh, and then I heard the garage door open. By the time I found the keyhole with the key, he was in the house and up the stairs.

I guess I should reset all the clocks in the house before I go to bed tonight. And the microwave oven. And turn off my stereo receiver that always mysteriously turns on when the lights come back on after a blackout. Then again, I'm on vacation so who cares what time it is? Hub has to go to school to give final exams tomorrow, but we keep a battery-powered alarm clock for just such emergencies.

Oh, I'll set them all. I hate things blinking at me in the house.

I got my grades posted online with a couple of hours to spare (never say I put things off) and boy, are some of my students going to be upset. They shouldn't be surprised, but they'll be upset anyway. And whatta you bet some of them will be surprised anyway, even the ones who haven't come to class for a month or more, and didn't show for the final last week, either. Sigh.

Do these people really think I didn't notice that they haven't been in class for weeks at a time? Do they really think all those quizzes and essays they didn't take or write won't 'count' on their final grade? Do they really believe that a zero has no mathematical effect?

I'd like to have a nickel for every student who's said something to me along the lines of "How's come I failed your class? I got a 74% on the mid-term!!! Look at this homework; I got an 87% on it! How could I have flunked?" And the sad thing is, some of them honestly don't know why they failed. I mean, if you average 74% and 87%, you get a pretty good grade. And when I try to show them that yes, those two grades are passing, but there were forty-seven grades taken in all, and two good grades plus 45 zeroes divided by 47 comes out pretty disgracefully low, they still don't understand sometimes. Sicker Sadder still, often their parents don't understand, either. Fortunately, at this level, I don't have to deal with their parents. I had enough of that in the public schools, thankyouverymuch.

My shirt still smells like Grecco's. My grades are posted. The lights are on and somebody's home.

Oh, and I got a free 8-lb. ham at Marsh. I interpret that as an omen that we need to have another party, and soon, too.