New Crimes

After our funeral for Rocky, I went to the principal’s office to inform him of what we had done.  I felt confident in my decision, but just in case any of the parents called—I wanted him to know.  I have often approached my decisions with a “better to ask forgiveness than permission” attitude.  I feel most people think way too much when trying to make a decision instead of following their gut or intuition.  One of my issues following my stroke was that I would often feel confident about the decision I was making even though it was a lousy one (for example, selling all of my livingroom furniture).  Another area in which I am extremely confident is in the area of traveling.  In fact, my friend Ruth and I have been lost on a number of occasions.  On one such recent occasion when we hit the Ohio border instead of western Michigan, she confessed, “Lori, I didn’t think we were going the right way, but you’re always so darn confident I can’t bring myself to argue with you.”

So, here I was, sitting in Mr. G’s office confessing that I had just led my class in a funeral service for Rocky, the gerbil.  I gave him a blow by blow description of the event as his eyes revealed his amusement.  But we both agreed, I should probably try to figure out why Rocky had died.

For this task, I enlisted the help of a fellow teacher who had some knowledge of gerbils.  She came into the room prepared for the mission of figuring out the mysterious death of Rocky.  Together we looked all around his cage while she questioned me.  Road, Rocky’s partner, lay listlessly in the corner.

“This other gerbil doesn’t look so hot either,” said fellow first grade teacher, Margot.

“I know…do you think it is the cage or the temperature of the room?” I questioned.

“Did you give them fresh water every day?”

“yes.”

“How often did you change the bedding?” the inquisition continued.

“At least once a week.” 

She poked around the bedding.  “And what did you feed them?”  I held up the box of seed.  She studied it carefully.  She looked at the food dish in the cage,  she pinched some of the food between her index finger and thumb putting about a teaspoon of it in her hand  “Lori, when was the last time you fed them?”  I looked at the food dish, “Well, it has been awhile but I’ve been waiting for them to finish what is in the dish.”

“Lori,” Margot said my name as if I were one of her dense 1^st graders, “the food you were giving your gerbils is a type of seed.  The gerbils shell the seed, eat the seed, and leave the shell.  There isn’t any food in this dish—just shells of the seeds.”  She waited patiently for the conclusion to sink in.  Suddenly it did.

“You mean, I starved Rocky to death?”  I asked meekly.  She nodded as she emptied the shells into the garbage and refilled the dish with seed for Road who for some reason attacked it like a bear just out of a long hibernation.

“I killed my class pet?”  I questioned again.

“Sorry,” she comforted, “you didn’t do it on purpose.”

I was a murderer who was glad her class was presently at music.

“Wow,” I sat on a nearby desk.  “I can’t believe I murdered my first class pet.”

“You can always buy another one,” she suggested.

“No, I don’t deserve another one. I can’t believe I killed Rocky.  I thought there was always food in the dish.”

“It’s okay, Lori.  Accidents happen.  Hey, look at this way—there probably isn’t another teacher that could put on their resume that they killed the class pet.”  She was trying to put a humorous spin to the whole event.

“What am I going to tell the kids?” I asked.

“I wouldn’t tell them anything,” she suggested, “they really don’t need to know.”

“Okay, I think you are right,” I agreed.  “Wow, I can’t believe I killed Rocky.”

“Don’t take it so hard,” she said preparing to go back to her own classroom. 

I sat at my desk processing the information until my students returned from music.  That would be like someone not feeding me dinner because they assumed I had eaten when they saw eggshells on the counter. 

I went home that afternoon immediately after school was out.  The revelation had exhausted me and I felt the urge to cook up a huge meal for Scott and Sarah.