Day One: Part Deux

It didn't start out well. Why did I think things would turn around? The pants I thought I'd wear seemed to have shrunk.  I put my nylons on and got that twisted feeling right in the middle of my thigh. Felt like I was walking with a slight inward pull every time I put my left leg forward. Mapquest gave me seriously wrong directions to the school. Thinking to check my makeup just one last, quick, time I pulled down the visor to look in the mirror and was showered by a dozen CDs I had stashed up there. One gave me a paper-cut type slash right down the middle of my nose. I was buzzed into the office where the two gals barely gave me a glance. "stand here, look forward," the blond said as she snapped a Polaroid for my school ID. Wearing that lanyard with the big word SUBSTITUTE on it was like wearing the scarlet letter.

I slipped the noose around my neck and was looking at the picture as I walked directly into the opening office door. Reeling from that, I had a nagging feeling that my picture somehow looked funny. 'Must be the cut on the nose,' I told myself, blowing it off. A bell rang and I realized that was the last bell before the kids were required to be in class. I bumbled around for a few minutes looking for room 322.  I got a multitude of weird looks -- substitute looks, I thought.   I got to the room and half the class was there, no one seated. Another bell rang and I told everyone that I was the substitute. "Duh," said the smartest-looking kid in the class. That's trouble. If the Rhodes scholar of the class is a smart-ass, its gonna be a long day. I told them my name, then said to open their books to Chapter Six. No one moved. "Is there a problem?" I asked. "Is there a problem?" tweetered four of the five rowdies at the back of the class. I took a few steps forward and said "Did you have a question?" and tried to give them my toughest look. "Sure," said Malibu Barbie, as she put away her compact. "Do you always wear makeup on only one eye?"