Water Cooler Tragedy?!

I work at a school. Did I mention this? I teach three days a week. This involves a lot of preparation and prayer that gets spent on some super apathetic teenagers. I love it though. Some moments I just ask the question:

“What do you call organisms that must depend on other organisms for its energy?”

*Insert cricket chirping here*

Then I call on some unwilling participant who answers in astonishment, “Heterotrophic?” They looked around to their friends in shock. Did that just come out of their mouth? Yes! It did!

Proof that you can learn by just sitting there, staring at the wall.

The other two days of the week I work in the front office. I answer the phone and apply four thousand Band aids to kiddos, eyes welling with tears. My most common cuts come from falling. (Do you remember what it is like to have half the coordination you do now?) The others are a mixture of paper cuts, scratches and my personal favorite, the pencil gouge. These poor children have no one to blame but themselves and they often look guilty asking for some first aid while clutching their wounds.

“It’s not your fault, Bucko! You’ll grow into those hands someday!”

The thing that cracks me up the most, however, is the water cooler right outside my office door. We only have one water fountain in the building and it is on the other side of the school. When the water jug is empty, the kids just stand there with their cone cup in their hand…stunned.

I pause nonchalantly from my (insert office task here) and wait silently, not making eye contact.

They push down the lever and nothing comes out. They shake the large plastic jug. Although it is transparent they push the lever again. Nothing. Then they proclaim, “There’s no water!”

Some give up and throw their empty cup away. I have seen a million cups go down without a drop of water having ever been transported by them. Others just stare at me.

Finally I say, “Go to the water fountain.” Again….stunned silence. They look down at the cup in their hands. “You can take your cup with you if you like,” I say. This seems to placate them. What they are going to do with their cone cup is beyond me but off they toddle. Two seconds later another group comes down the hall and the whole thing starts over. Only this time there are 4-6 kids, all with cups in their hands pushing down the lever in turn. Finally one declares that the water is out and they all throw their cups away and go back to class defeated. Sometimes before I can even suggest the obvious, that they go to the water fountain.

The real buzz came one day when the third graders figured out how to turn on the water heater (for those cups of coffee they have all been wanting). They would then try to trick each other into drinking the water from that spout. They all stand around and chuckle and dare each other.

This is the epitome of their day. I thought this was no big deal but I heard kids talking about it for two weeks! “Hey, did you hear that So-N-So turned on the HOT water? It was awesome!”

I am just shocked at the simplicity of life as a child. They aren’t wondering how to pay their rent just how to get water.

You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to those uncoordinated, pencil-gouging, dehydrated days. I’ll take the rent worry.