Answer Me!

Throughout a normal school day, teachers must deal with a lot of different kinds of kids. You've got the just-tell-me-what-to-do-and-I'll-do-it kids that make you feel good about yourself and the great job you're doing to educate America's youth...even though I'm convinced that those kids could probably take a book and teach themselves. On the other side of the spectrum, teachers must also maneuver around the bring-it-on kids, students who are locked and loaded for a battle at even the slightest hint of confrontation. Anything, most of which takes place outside the classroom, can set these kids off inside the classroom if you make a request, offer a suggestion, or glance in the direction of asking them to do something they don't want to do.

Somewhere in the middle of these two extremes falls the passive-aggressive kid, the student who just rubs you the wrong way but you cannot pinpoint exactly what about the behavior is so bothersome, let alone conjure up enough viable evidence worthy of an office referral.

This is where I begin our story.

For a week now Richie has been working part-time in the office at a local middle school. We call him the Pretend Principal, his duties centering around low level office referrals and the occasional emergency that occurs more often than occasionally when you put a diverse group of hundreds of middle schoolers together for any length of time longer than two seconds. He has also been given the task of seeking out students that have caught their teachers attention, but not in a good way.

The other day Richie pulled this girl out of class a few minutes early and asked if he could walk with her to her next class. She looked up and shrugged; he took that as a yes. The two begin walking and Richie says, "Some of your teachers have been wondering about you. You are coming up on their radar, and not for good things. Do you know why you would be coming up on their radar?"

She shrugs.

"Well, I need you to tell me why you think your teachers might be concerned about you."

Shrug.

More questions. More shrugs. This continues until the two almost reach their destination.

At this point I must take a Saved by the Bell timeout and mention a few tidbits on Richie's family history. You see, in my family whenever a disagreement ensued, Dad yelled, Mom cried, and the kids, no matter what age, kept their mouths shut. In time I learned that confrontation was always bad and now seek to avoid it at all costs. This is not so with the Hutchinson's. Confrontation is a gift to all, something to enjoy, engage in, and tell stories about for years to come. At his house when the question is called, you better answer first and you better answer loudly, otherwise your voice is not heard.

Back to our story.

You can probably imagine how Mr. Give-me-an-answer is feeling right now. His fact-finding mission is failing fast because this passive aggressive girl won't engage in the conversation.

"OK," he says, "this really isn't an I-don't-know kind of question. Do you think it's fair that you've been coming up on your teachers' radar? I need a yes or a no on this one."

At this point Richie realizes that they have walked through the library and are now arriving at the girl's next class; they are standing at the door of the speech room!

After harassing this girl for well over five minutes, we find out that she is selectively mute. She has the physical ability to speak but, for whatever reason, chooses not to.

Later that day, Richie and I go through the normal how-was-your-day routine. "Fine," he answers. "I just made fun of the mute girl. Tomorrow I plan on harassing the deaf kid. It's all in a day's work for the Pretend Principal."

Let's Take a Poll

Last night I asked Richie to pick up a cake mix and frosting. I assumed he knew I signed up to make a cake for a funeral at church, considering I never bake. (This is not an exaggeration; since we have been married, I cannot remember baking anything...at least not anything edible.)

Around seven o'clock, I pulled the mix box out of the grocery bag. A confetti cake? Really? For a funeral?

So, who's with me? We're taking a poll. I think confetti cake at a funeral is wildly inappropriate. Richie argues that a funeral should be a celebration of life; therefore, white cake with colorful sprinkles mixed in is more than appropriate. What do you think?

Calling All Followers

While reading Tribes by Seth Godin, I came across the idea that any movement of people needs only one thousand true fans in order to get started. This movement, though, one that celebrates the small, flaunts the less-than-flattering, and questions the orthdox, is going to aim much lower than one thousand followers. (I guess that being immersed in the culture of Underachieverville can eventually take a toll on even the most Type A of individuals.)

In ecology* there's this theory called the 10% rule: In any given food chain only 10% of the energy emassed in only level is available to the next.

So, here's my plea: I'm asking for a 10% rule here. Within the next year I'm shooting for one hundred reader/followers to join our movement and to unite under the banner of "Stories by Allison: You've got to be kidding me!" Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your coworkers...if they are not already members of the first group.

I have a dream of one day becoming a professional storyteller, and I fully recognize that crazy stuff doesn't just happen to me, and I'd love to tell your stories, too. Names can always be changed to protect the innocent. So, let's sit down and swap stories for the mental health benefit of people everywhere.

*Did you know that the word eco- stems from the Greek work oikos, meaning house or home. Ecology, then, is the study of our home, the Earth. We also get the word economy from this root. Economy in Jesus' day referred to the way in which families organized and orchestrated their households. Perhaps if families today understood the ancient meaning behind their personal economy, our present national economy would be playing out differently.

Comb Jellies

Have you ever had a perfectly sensible thought floating around in your head, but when that thought transformed into a sound wave and made its way out your mouth, you realize that the intended meaning is far different than the actual meaning? I offer you a now-classic science department story to let you know that you're not the only one.

As a 22 year-old biology education major who once thought herself to be calm, cool, collected, and smart, I find myself somehow standing in front of a classroom full of hormonal adolescents talking about the characteristics of the animal kingdom. Just so you can get a feel for how innocent and naive the particular verbal slip on which this story hinders really was, let's reenact the scene.

Me: Alright, kids. Today we're going to learn a little bit about the study of taxonomy. No, we're not stuffing dead animals; instead, we'll be categorizing organisms based on certain characteristics. To start, I'm going to time us for two minutes, and I'd like you to write down any animal that comes to mind. Ready...set...go. (You should do this, too.)

(Two minutes later) Me: OK. Time's up. Check with your neighbors to see if they came up with some ideas that you didn't and add those to your list. Now I'd like you to cross off any animal with fur, legs, or wings. What's left?

We then make a list of the few leftovers on the board. How did you do? What's left on your list of non-furry, leg-less, wing-less animals?

At this point I begin to open the idea of what an animal really is. Can we boil the entire animal kindgom down to things you see in a zoo? Is that how small our view of life really is? I hold up a sponge and ask the kids to describe it. Is this sponge an animal? Yes!

Me: In fact, my favorite animal is something commonly called a comb jelly, and it doesn't look anything like what you'd see at the zoo.

I need to take a Saved by the Bell timeout right here. Please scroll back up to the beginning of this story and look at the picture I've uploaded. How would you describe this cute, little creature to a class full of uninterested teenagers? (Is that a redundant statement?)

Back to the action.

Me: In fact, my favorite animal is something commonly called a comb jelly, and it doesn't look anything like what you'd see at the zoo. They're these cute little sea creatures that have rows of cilia to aid in locomotion. (Blank stares all around.) Well, they kind of remind me of those ping pong balls with velcro on them that you throw at a dart board. (More blank stares.) Oh, yeah. You guys didn't experience the 80's. (So finally, in an exasperated tone, I say...) They look like hairy balls!

The last word actually came out more like "baaaaaaalls", as I was trying my best to somehow put the vibrating air particles back into my mouth before they reached my students’ ears and completed the sound circuit.

How do you recover from telling my pubescent posse that something looked like hairy balls? Needless to say, I have grabbed everyone’s attention, so I just stand there.

“I just said ‘hairy balls’, didn’t I?” I ask.

“Yep,” they say.

“Hum.” I say. And we just sort of look at each other for a moment. I feebly attempt to recover the rest of the class period by asking the kids to write down the characteristics for other kingdoms using their books while I secretly wish invisibility cloaks really did exist.

Something so innocent coming out so horribly. For me, it’s all in a day’s work.

The Wedding Pastor

Buying a new calendar and copying down birthdays and anniversaries, as well as recording future events like family reunions, school vacations, and weddings, always brings me this weird sense of joy each new year. Maybe it's my love for writing things down or maybe I feel like I'm somehow controlling my future.

Whatever the reason, as I was recording events and appointments, grinning mentally from ear to ear, I couldn't help but notice all the weddings that Richie will be officiating this summer. Maybe you've seen movies like The Wedding Singer (Hilarious! And no matter how many times I watch this show, "I Wanna Grow Old with You" still moves me to tears.) or The Wedding Planner (Matthew McConaughey is very nice to look at; he moves me in a different way.), but I'd like to suggest the next wedding blockbuster: The Wedding Pastor.

I think that most people enjoy listening to Richie teach because he inspires and challenges them by bringing new light to old (in the time-tested, not the stodgey sense) truths, by asking what the text meant for the people of that time and then giving suggestions as to what it could mean for us today. I suspect he can do this more easily than others because he lacks the years of dogmatic indoctrination that recovering fundamentalists like me have to sift through first. When our friends and family ask Richie to officiate their wedding, I'm convinced that they are thinking solely of this inspirational, challenging teaching ability.

But when it comes to Richie, you've gotta take the whole kit-n-kaboodle. For every person that wildly enjoys his teaching style, there is another person that doesn't, um...ah...appreciate it. What angers most people about Richie's teaching is that he doesn't fit things into a nice, little Christian box. He is sometimes untame and a bit vulgar when talking about things traditionally held to be "spiritual" while at the same time, taking the normal, everyday things of life and putting a spiritual spin on them.

What the wedding lovebirds fail to recognize when asking Richie to do their wedding is this "whole package" conundrum. At a wedding ceremony, he is great at making people feel welcomed and excited to be living in the moment, but he is not good at one, often underappreciated aspect of all things wedding...following a script.

No one cares about the order of service until it isn't followed correctly, and at a wedding everyone is handed a bulletin where this order is beautifully printed for all to read.

For example, Richie did a wedding for two of our good friends and forgot to give the bride away. Everyone (but Richie) knows what's supposed to happen after the greeting and opening prayer since we've been to many other weddings and, oh yeah, we all have a script in front of us. So Richie starts gabbing, Bride still holding her daddy's arm, Groom a bit annoyed that this old guy's got his woman, and this awkward tension rolls through the crowd. I think I need a Secret Service earpiece/microphone or at least a really big dry erase board to send Richie clues as to why everyone is looking around nervously.

At this same wedding Richie gave an inspiring, challenging little message, complete with props (props?) but somehow implied during his talk that the bride and groom should wear only Post-it Notes. Thankfully, we think this couple still considers us good friends, but while saying good bye, the mother of the bride, the only opinion that really matters, thanked Richie by saying that the wedding was, um, interesting.

My very favorite part, though, about Richie officiating a wedding is perhaps the most sacred part: the vows. Because he's not a script kind of guy, as I mentioned earlier, he doesn't read through what he will be saying all that closely. So we get to the vows, the time of the ceremony where the man and woman pledge their undying affection and steadfast love to each other before God and these witnesses, and this is what undoubtedly transpires:

Richie to the Bride: Do you, Jane, take Joe to be your lawful wedded husband? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, till death do you part?

The answer is generally "Yes" or "I do."

Then Richie to the Groom: Do you, Jane, take Joe to your lawful wedded husband? To have and to hold, etc.

He just cuts and pastes the vows from one section to the other without making the necessary gender changes! Again, enter awkward tension broken by nervous chuckle, all recorded by the videographer forever and ever.

These may not seem like big deals right now, but trust me, on your wedding day, on your Big Day, these Richie-isms will seem like more of a big deal.

I say this not to disrespect my wonderful, thoughtful, loving husband in any way; I just want to make sure that all of the summer lovebirds understand and are OK with the whole package theory... just like I am.

In the Last Two Years

This free verse little diddy came together last night after having spent the entire two weeks of the holiday break with a toddler who likes to tell adults "Stop!" and feels the need to let everyone know that most things in the universe are "Mine!". She kind of grows on you after awhile, and I will miss our lazy days together once school starts back up.

During this particular inspirational event, she was feeding popcorn to her babies and then eating it herself. (I know, popcorn for a toddler, not good, but I rescinded my Mother-of-the-Year nomination a long time ago. I think it was the day Harmony put a penny in her mouth, fell of the bed, and had fire-engine red diaper rash. (Even thinking about that day brings back waves of Mom Guilt. (Can you put parentheses within parentheses? (Well, I guess I just did. (It's kind of fun. (You should try it sometime. (OK, stop. (You're being obnoxious!)))))))

So for young moms everywhere, I submit to you "In the Last Two Years"

In the last two years someone less than half our size has taken up more than half our living space.

In the last two years milk, juice, or urine has been spilled or peed on almost every flat surface in our apartment.

In the last two years we have watched 101 Dalmatians 101 times.

In the last two years I have seen poop in literally every color of the rainbow.

In the last two years I have learned what RSV, impetigo, and nipple shields are.


In the last two years I have memorized the PBS Kids morning line up (DragonTales, Martha Speaks, Curious George, Sid the Science Kid, and Super Why) along with each show's respective theme song.

In the last two years I have learned not only what vomit looks like and smells like, but I now know exactly what it sounds like as it's projected from a little mouth unto your chest.

In the last two years we have take more pictures, sung more songs, and read more board books than I thought humanly possible.

In the last two years I have learned to speak a new language: water, milk, and blanket are now wawer, nook, and bee.

In the last two years we have lost hours, maybe even days, of sleep, we have lost much money, and we have lost all privacy.

And every night for the last two years, all I can say when the day is done is "Thank you."