rustypants speaks

“mr. rust! you’re back!!”

i hear this squealed with joy by two of my girls tuesday morning just as i’m about to speak with our school’s data clerk.

“i’m back! how’ve things been while i was gone?”

“the sub was awful!” “so-and-so said this to that person!” “we didn’t even get to go outside!!” “please don’t go out of town again.” “can we please go outside today?” were among the overlapping responses from these two fifth graders.

“wow – ok, so things are ok, the sub was bad, she didn’t take you out, so-and-so is being nasty… anything else?”

“oh, yeah… ___________ got suspended for writing something really bad on someone’s shirt.”

“so i heard. sounds like ___________’s out for the rest of the year because of it.”

short pause…

“well, i guess we won’t have no more trouble the rest of the year now that she’s gone,” came one girl’s reply.

*data clerk unable to control her laughter in the background*

believe me, i tried. i tried hard. but unfortunately, the moment was so funny, the serious look on this young lady’s face so somber, i couldn’t help but laugh, too.

“i overheard two ladies in my congregation talking about courtesy drops one day.”

thus began an interesting conversation with my pastor several years ago.

“courtesy drops?” i asked.

“yeah. you know how in some churches there’s all that faintin’ going on up at the altar during service?”

well, of course i had. i was the youth pastor at an inner-city african-american church. it didn’t happen there much, but it did when other churches would come and visit ours. we had seen it at other churches more frequently. all those fine-looking ladies in their sunday best, large ornate hats on their heads and handkerchiefs in hand, walking up to the altar for prayer. and then it would begin.

sometimes it was subtle. a little moaning, a little movement, then the drop.

other times it was an all-out production. crying. yelling. waving the hanky. hopping up and down. then the big drop.

and there are folks whose job at church is to act as a “catcher” to the droppers. they stand behind the congregant waiting for the moment, then, arms extended, they catch the person who has been “slain in the Spirit” and gently lay them down on the floor until they come around. sometimes a cloth is placed over them, other times they’re left alone completely.

“so, what’s a courtesy drop?”

“well, apparently these two had visited a sister church somewhere in town and the pastor, he called people up for prayer, right? so folk are going up and getting prayed over, but there was no fainting going on. well, the one woman says to the other, ‘well, i felt bad for him [the pastor] that no one was receiving the Spirit, so i went up, done got prayed over, then did a courtesy drop so he felt like God was moving even if no one else was dropping. i didn’t want him to feel bad about hisself.’”

i stared at chris, waiting to hear him laugh and tell me i was gullible and easy.

“dude…,” i said.

“straight up!” he replied.

it was a funny story that we talked about many times afterwards, but i came to only one real conclusion: like we need to give people another reason to not believe or not trust, we have folks who fake things like this just to pump up the minister’s ego on a “slow night” at church?

wonder what the percentage of courtesy drops to real drops is?

it was one of my first nights as a youth leader on my own. i had taken over the ministry from a couple of older folks (read: 40′s / 50′s) and was excited to finally infuse the youth with some youthfulness. being all of 24 years old with a dash of arrogance and a pinch of obnoxious, i’m talking with the group while we’re standing around eating pizza. there might have been 15 of us as my head swelled at the thought of Being In Charge while Being Young And Cool. i wanted to show off a bit and the conversation came to this:

me: well, i’m just excited about working with you guys.
student: why? what’s going to be different now?
me: well, we’re going to have a lot more fun now. i know the folks before me were kinda old and stuff and now it’ll be cool! i mean, i’m 24 years old!
student: um… i’m twelve.

my head popped. my ego deflated. my high-mindedness crashed. i had been served. by someone who was half my age and had no concept of being 24. yea, verily, this conversation HAD to happen (and thank goodness it came early).

and now i teach 5th graders who think 39 is the epitome of ancient. serves me right.

a diamante, written by mr. rust’s class:

flowers
small pretty
smelling blooming picking
they smell wonderful. they smell disgusting.
stinking tooting embarrassing
stanky nasty
farts

when you need to come up with two things that are opposites, what’s more opposite than flowers and farts? hey, you’ve got to do something to keep their interest!

“don’t be silly,” she said. “when we have a little extra money, we’ll buy a new one.”

i knew she was mocking me, even if only lightly. the look on her face combined with the tone of her voice told me what i already knew: women just don’t understand.

when we moved to pensacola, we had three cars worth of stuff packed and that was it. in subsequent trips back to cincinnati, we’d load whichever car we had with whatever we could stuff in it and drive back with a few more of our precious possessions.

and on each of our return trips there was a small, slight, pleading voice calling me from the back yard.

i did what i could to ignore it. i’d hum. i’d crank the tunes louder and louder. i’d try and distract myself from the sound. eventually i began hearing the voice calling me down here in p-cola. sleepless nights spent trying to block out the voice, thrashing to and fro under the covers led to serious bouts of insomnia. a nervous twitch developed just under my right eye. the slightest whiff of a barbecue being lit sent my brain into a paroxysm of uncontrollable mental anguish. like a man whose arm has been amputated, the phantom limb cried out and i could feel the missing appendage tho’ it be seven hundred miles north, oh, sweet heavens, when will this torture end, when???

i knew before i broached the subject that i had to tread carefully. women, you understand, like the outcome but rarely understand the process and manly ego involved in grill cooking.

“so, i’m thinking that this next trip up to cincy… our list this time is really short. i ought to have a good amount of room leftover for my drive back.”

“that’s nice, dear. be nicer to drive without all that stuff in the back seat blocking the window.”

“yeah! but hey, i’m thinking that i’ll take a shot at bringing the grill down with me. if i can get it taken apart and i can clean it up good, lay a cloth down and bring it down in pieces and that way…”

and i could tell by the look on her face that everything after “bringing the grill down” was being translated as “blah blah blah blah…” and this is when she said it.

“don’t be silly,” she said. “when we have a little extra money, we’ll buy a new one.”

now, i knew she was going to say it. i had a script prepared in my mind and had rehearsed it in five different possible scenarios to convince her and show her that i’m not silly and that i was hurting, hurting in a deep, psychological, but almost physical way. but her gaze… oh, lord, her gaze shut me down. i went mute. drool pooled up at the front of my mouth and i barely shut it in time before it slopped over the front of my shirt.

“duh, uh, well… er, see… i mean…”

but by the time i regained my footing, it was too late. i could see by the smug look on her face that she chalked up another one to good old fashioned female reasoning. it took some doing but my fractured ego was taped back together and as i arrived in cincinnati a fortnight hence, the small, pleading voice had become a shrill scream.

the grill demanded satisfaction, it demanded a sacrifice. “take me to p-cola and cook on me or be cooked, sucker!“

as i took WD-40 to this 7 year old rusted, wobbly beast of a grill, i realized too late that i was to be the sacrifice!

jenny, our friend and neighbor, saw me fighting with the fused screws and gave me the same look that lise had given me. it was as though they had spoken via some internal woman-cam and a collaboration on the destruction of the fragile male condition was underway.

this, my friends, was like throwing propane on my fiery soul. i would not be mocked again!!

and two hours later, disheveled, bleeding, cold, filthy, unable to feel my right hand, and a second twitch doing a jig under my left eye, i emerged from the garage with the look of a crazed maniac. holding high the left leg assembly, i turned in triumph to jenny, playing with her children in their yard, and proclaimed in a loud voice, “A MAN IS NOTHING WITHOUT HIS GRILL!!!” and collapsed in a heap on the lawn.

*2 days later*

as i arrive back in pensacola, my wife rolls her eyes slightly at the grill-in-fifty-pieces and gives me that what-is-it-with-these-barbarians look and leaves me to cart the pieces to the patio of the apartment. my psyche lay in shards and i begin to doubt my own sanity until…

…until the first taste of scott’s famous garlic / worcestershire / dozens of unnamed spices / port wine cheese burgers touch her tongue and she utters in a flushed and breathless voice,“mmmm… these are delicious… oh! i’ve missed them!”

“i know,” i think to myself vaingloriously, “i know.”

it was late. i was tired.

it had been raining that day, so the ground was wet. the sun was gone and the fog was thick as pea soup in some spots. my penchant for driving late had begun to catch up to me as we were only three hours from where we started and we had seven hours left to go. i knew we were going to have to find a hotel but the nearest hotel we trusted was almost two hours from where we were.

my hands were gripping the steering wheel so tightly that even in the darkness i could see the whiteness of my knuckles. driving in these conditions through the mountains of western maryland was not my favorite thing to do and even as i fought sleepiness i was hypervigilant about other vehicles and my surroundings.

the music was blaring out the speakers of my ’93 saturn SW2. lise was asleep (lucky dog). going 70 MPH, i had been driving a bit slower through this section because of fog banks sneaking up on us around sharp and steep bends. at the same time, i ran the tip of my tongue on the roof of my mouth to stay alert through the fog of my fatigued brain.

we were coming up to the top of one of the mountaintops when it happened.

the amount of time i had to make the decision could not be measured in minutes or seconds: choose the right one immediately or…

my right eye flinched briefly as i kept my foot on the gas, a slightly crazed grin forming on my mouth.

when we hit, i expected the world to stop, but the impact was much less stunning than i figured. the crunch of bones, the hair flying, the limbs severing, perhaps even the final yelp – it was all present as one would expect, simply not to the degree formed in one’s mind.

i laughed out loud as the car continued flying, and lise woke up almost in slow-motion, fear mounting in her eyes.

“wha…?” she had time to ask before i bellowed out even more laughter.

“a cat ran out of the woods and was dashing towards the highway in the path of our car,” i exclaimed between bursts of laughter, “i knew it was gonna be him or us and there was no way in hell it was gonna be US!”

as her fear subsided and the collision was processed, she turned to me and said, “you mean you couldn’t have swerved out of the way?”

and another split decision was made at that moment: instead of attempting to explain the physics of swerving out of the way of a careening, suicidal cat while barreling down the highway at 70mph on the slick, cold, mountain roads of western maryland at 11pm while half asleep at the wheel, i simply barked another laugh and said, “nope!”

and the thought of a ghost cat sitting on the side of I-68 waiting for sweet revenge was enough to keep me alert and laughing all the way to our hotel room.

since our earliest days as a married couple (17 years ago!!) we’ve been members of sam’s club. back in those days our typical purchases were cases of ramen noodles and tubs of peanut butter (just the staples we could afford to survive). in recent years it’s grown to include just about everything they sell – good deals, generally!

at times, however, sam’s makes us laugh.

their christmas stuff? it was put out a couple weeks ago.

they sell all kinds of ridiculous stuff throughout the year that i cannot fathom the purchasers of such things.

but i digress.

since knowing we were moving to pensacola back in january or february of 2007, we’ve been more conscious than usual of lise’s skin cancer and our need to protect against it even moreso down here than in cincinnati. it’s always sunny down here (well, except for when the heavens are dumping a torrential downpour upon us).

sam’s club to the rescue!

back in march or april while twirling around the store looking at all the goods, i spotted something more ridiculous than usual. here we are in land-locked ohio, no beaches as far as the eye can see (unless you count the scary little one at East Fork Lake) and here, at sam’s club: a beach umbrella.

we’d seen them in some of the stores and shops down here on our vacations but they were always overpriced and rickety looking. this baby at sam’s club: metal, dude! big spike on the bottom! multi-colored fabric! water and oil resistant!

and the price? under $20.

well, who am i to argue? i plunked down my money, put the sucker in the garage and waited for the move. and now, six months later, this is what our umbrella looks like spiked in the sand on the gulf of mexico on a gorgeous sunday night at the end of september.

now if only they sold industrial strength drums of sunscreen, we’d be set.

one rule i have in my class is that during instructional time (i.e. while i’m in front teaching) there is no leaving to go use the bathroom. the breaking of this rule is frequently attempted with such phrases as, “pleeeease, Mr. Rust!” and “it’s an emergency! you don’t want me to pee in the classroom, do you?” (which sorely tempts me, but…).

at any rate, some of the kids know the correct combination of phrases, facial expressions, and bodily “moves” that will break my will on this rule.

most do not.

this past week brought the best attempt yet. picture this:

we’d just finished several weeks of review work that included looking at declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamatory sentences, their rules, usage, and much practice. the first test on this was a terrible failure and i gave a second test two days later just to make sure (much better results).

it’s monday. a bad day. frustrated with behaviors, i’m teaching my homeroom on the Smartboard new grammar stuff when one of my pain-in-the-rear kids raises his hand with a note in it for me.

while still teaching, i walk over, take the note from him, ready to ignore the question inside it.

the note reads:
“I need to go real bad. Can I please go to the bathroom? (interrogative sentence)”

i laughed so hard i almost went to the bathroom myself.

i wrote back to him:
“now that’s just pathetic!”

and i let him break my rule.

this cartoon reminded me of an incident that happened last year at an indian restaurant in cincinnati.lise and i were there during lunch, minding our own business, relaxing and having some fantastic indian food. we were having a great conversation and a lot of fun when about 20 folks walked in the place at once.

“oh, crap” was my immediate thought. this restaurant isn’t big enough for 20 people and here comes a group that size – suddenly i understood why the already narrow aisles were even more narrow as 4 long tables had been put together up the middle making passage near impossible.

you can picture what happened next: 20 folks cram themselves into the middle of the narrow restaurant, talking loud, blocking us into our table, getting in and out as they all tried to go to the buffet at once, etc.

well, i’m cool, right? i mean, i understand the fun of having a big group and going out to eat together! we do our best to not bother the other patrons and enjoy ourselves.

but then.

then one of them pulls out a camera. in the middle of the day. at the indian restaurant. and they begin taking pictures with a flash. in my direction.

and that was about all i could handle after the tenth picture was taken.

i made the ugliest face i could muster as the eleventh picture was about to be snapped and looked right into the camera – i transformed into THAT GUY.

and as the dude who took the picture went back to make sure it “took” – his face dropped. he shows the camera to a couple of his friends and i realize with dawning concern that one of two things can happen: they’ll “get the picture” and stop it…

or they’ll kick my ass.

thankfully, none of them even looked over in our direction, but the message must’ve been received because the camera was put away and we were able to finish our meal in peace.

at times, usually late at night in the throes of insomnia, i wonder if my picture is on some kind of “that guy who ruined our picture” website.

the job’s been such a roller coaster that i’m not really capable of writing objectively about it at this time. the expletives might be a bit overpowering, so i’m going to look at another form of language tonight instead…

i’ve been learned by several southern scholars down here in pensacola in the correct use of the english vernacular and thought it was time to share some with y’all.

plumb – adv. – there seems to be no yankee equivalent to this one. example: “I plumb forgot.”

fixin’ – v. – yankee equivalent: “getting ready to” – example: “i’m fixin’ to kick your ass” or in the immortal words of country joe mcdonald, “i feel like i’m fixin’ to die”

reckon – v. – yankee equivalent: “guess” or “suppose” – example:
Scott: Looks like a big storm is brewing.
Southerner: I reckon so.

right powerful – adj. – yankee equivalent: “big” “huge” “monstrous” – example: “That there’s a right powerful storm brewin’!”

y’all – n. – yankee equivalent: you, singular – example:
Scott: Hey, Cole, what’re y’all doing?
Cole: I’m not doing anything.

all y’all – n. - yankee equivalent: you, plural – example:
Scott to his class: All y’all need to sit down, eyes up here and ready to work on writing!

of course you can mix and match these as you please (and everyone down here does):

“I reckon I plumb forgot all y’all was comin’ over tonight for dinner. I’m fixin’ to make me a right powerful feast for dinner.”

so please, take a moment and practice with a partner so that when you come to visit I reckon that you, too, will be prepared to speak southern.