Off the Market

Like many teachers these days, I have a basket of fidgets on my desk. Although it is ever-evolving, lately, my collection includes an assortment of stress balls, yo-yos, poppers, puzzle cubes, hand grip exercisers, and a boxing ball headband. There is also a Wiz-z-zer.

For those who are unfamiliar, Wiz-z-zers are gyroscopic spinning tops that were popular in the 1970s. Unlike their predecessors, Wiz-z-zers did not use a string to start them spinning. Instead, you swept them at an angle across a plain surface (like the bare floor), revving them up, and then dropped them lightly to spin really fast for what seems like a very long time. 

When we were kids, Wiz-z-zers were a staple stocking stuffer for my brother and sister and me, and we each had several. When we got bored of spinning them, we battled them, and when we tired of that, we held them, buzzing, up to our cheeks, pretending they were electric razors.

Anyhow, it must have been over ten years ago that I saw one for sale in a clearance bin somewhere, and of course, I bought it. I realized then that I hadn't seen one for decades, and a little research revealed that they had been discontinued in the 80s, revived in the mid-oughts, and then discontinued again. My Wiz-z-zer languished in a box of toys in the attic until a recent purge when rather than give it away, I brought it to school.

Oh my! If I had known how popular it would be, I definitely would have dug that spinning top out sooner. Undoubtedly, its novelty contributes to its allure; no one who plays with it now has ever seen its like. In fact, several kids have offered to buy it from me.

"It's not for sale," I rejected the latest request yesterday.

"Not for any price?" replied the interested party.

"Nope," I confirmed.

"You're telling me that if I gave you a million dollars here and now for this thing," he held up the toy, "you wouldn't take it?"

"Maybe a million dollars," I shrugged, "but not a penny less." I laughed.

"How about a million dollars in pennies?" he countered. "By the time you finished counting them, would you even know if you were missing one?"

Trial and Error

A colleague came into my room with a frustrated look on her face. "Do you have a minute to help me?" 

"What's the problem?" I asked.

She had copied a Word document with a data table, and she was having trouble removing the information so that she could reuse the table. "Can't you just highlight it and hit Delete?" I suggested.

"You would think," she sighed.

I went to her laptop and tried it myself, but she seemed to be right. "Hmmm," I said as I thought about the possible causes of the issue. I like to think of myself as pretty tech-savvy, but my know-how is all experiential: I figure it out as I go, building on whatever skills I've developed along the way. This particular problem-solving was slightly complicated by the fact that she uses a PC and I am team Apple, all the way. Even so, solutions to those kinds of things are usually pretty intuitive. 

Of course, my next move was to search it up, and I found loads of fixes, none of which made any sense. They all involved Function this or Shift Left that. Finally, I approached her keyboard myself to examine the situation, and scanning the top row of function keys, I noticed a tiny one labeled "Delete" right next to F12 and above Backspace. I tapped it and all the onerous old data disappeared!

As it turns out? Delete and Backspace are not the same thing. (Except on an Apple keyboard!)

Twenty Questions

"I met someone who knows you," one of my colleagues told me today.

"Who was it?" I asked.

"You like games," he shrugged, "let's see if you can figure it out."

I laughed because I do like games. "Let's go!"

"She taught math here about 12 years ago," he started.

"That's it?" I said. "That's the only clue I get?"

"She knows you, and she used to teach with the assistant principal who moved to the other middle school. They were on the same team."

"Does she know me?" asked another veteran teacher who happened to be listening.

"She didn't mention you," he reported. "Or you either," he bobbed his chin at another longtimer.

"Hmmm," I thought for a minute. "Was it--?" I mentioned a name, but my colleague's face went blank, and he furrowed his brow. 

"I don't actually remember her name," he confessed. "That's why I wanted you to guess."

"Okay, then," I shook my head, preparing to approach the third rail of interpersonal relationships in the workplace. "What did she look like?"

First Shift

I took my car in for some minor repairs and a safety inspection, and rather than shuttle back and forth, I decided to wait in the dealership lounge. The wifi was good, and I was able to get quite a bit of planning and some grading done in the couple of hours I was there. When at last the service advisor came to fetch me, I was feeling pretty good about my productivity; revising a rubric seemed a much better way to spend my time than watching game shows on their giant flat screen, or reading a magazine, or scrolling through my phone. Doing schoolwork gave meaning to waiting around. 

As I ponder when and if I should retire, it's considerations such as this that give me pause: what will define my down time if it's not my on time?

Editorial

In a light-hearted attempt to re-introduce the topic of editing for correct punctuation, today I asked the sixth-graders in my English classes what their favorite punctuation mark was. 

The results of my poll were unexpected. The question mark was very popular not only because many of these young writers consider themselves curious, but also because of its fun shape. The exclamation mark was shouted out for excitement, which was emphatically its greatest strength. Some loved the comma for its ability to join things clearly, and others appreciated the ellipsis for its mystery and promise of more to come. A good number recognized the period as the workhorse of punctuation it is, even while they acknowledged that it wasn't very exciting.

The semicolon had one fan whose reason was "because nobody knows how it is used, and whenever I see it in the wild I feel fancy."

"I love the semicolon; I use it all the time," I replied.

The Fix Is Not In

Recently I've noticed that when things don't go their way, many of the sixth graders in my class complain that, "It's rigged." 

Their team lost the Super Bowl because of a conspiracy. That B on the science test? Obviously, the test wasn't fair. Our homeroom didn't win the door decorating contest because it was rigged against us. That soccer or basketball or baseball or lacrosse or hockey official was biased toward the other team, otherwise their team easily would have won. Didn't guess the color of the Jolly Rancher to win another? Rigged! Lost at Taco, Cat, Goat, Cheese, Pizza? The other kid was cheating!

Of course, I have a hunch where they got this notion; it is certainly not a concept limited to 11 and 12-year-olds these days, but maybe we should all remember that, sometimes?

We don't get our way, through no fault of anyone else. 

And that's okay.

Bargain Trapper

I'm not a big fan of shopping in general, but I sure do love shopping a clearance section. There's something about the prospect of finding unexpected treasure at a bargain price that hooks me every time. 

Today, for example, when I stopped at the card shop for some gift wrap, I found myself in the back of the store poking through the 75% off items. I couldn't resist buying a couple of canvas and faux fur trapper hats for my nephews; one of them lives in Iceland, and the other is a dedicated outdoorsman. At $4.50, the price was right, and I'm sure they will be great Christmas gifts if only I remember I have them-- December is a long time away! 

Even if I forget, though, I feel like I've already gotten my money's worth, because when I got them home and took them out of the bag, my dog was very interested in the furry items, thinking they were dog toys. Noticing her attention, I put one on, snapped it under my chin, and turned around with a playful growl. My dog started jumping and barking at the fearsome creature I had become, and I laughed as we wrestled around. 

Now she's sound asleep on the floor beside me, and I'm thinking of going back to get one of those hats for myself, or at least for my dog!