(It's just a phase...

...back next week)

Leftovers

The other evening at the eighth grade choir concert, I run into an old colleague. I haven't seen him in fifteen years. We chat for a bit, catch up. He's holding writing workshops at a local college, spending the summer in Spain, publishing his fourth book of poetry.

"And what are you up to?" he says.

I look around for the morphine drip.

"I teach preschool," I say.

Sometimes it's all you have left. The truth.

* * *

A former student of mine has named her pet after me. A fish. She's now six. The student, not the fish. If this fish lives to be six days, I'll eat my hat. Actually, I don't wear hats, I have a weird-shaped head. Sort of like a fish.

"This is new territory," I say to Former Student's mother, when she pops in to tell me about my latest namesake.

Last year I had a Barbie named after me, which is more like it.

Maybe I should've mentioned the fish to Old Colleague. He, of all people, should understand irony.

* * *

The preschoolers pronounce "ironing" like "irony," with a hard r.

"I'm i-ron-ing my wedding dress," says Brittany, when I ask what she's doing with that roll of paper towel.

The paper towel is draped over the yellow plastic ironing board and trails across the carpet like a winding sheet. Later she and Benjamin, who've been playing house, decide they don't need a baby after all and put it back in the dryer.

Old Colleague appears to have taken something out of the dryer.

Old Colleague's maybe ten years older than I (if that's possible), with a daughter in eighth grade. This is not the same daughter from fifteen years ago, who's probably pushing forty. Sneaking a glance, I determine it's not the same wife, either, who's probably pushing daisies.

* * *

My daughter and I are in the car, headed for the local alternative high school, where we're due for a guided tour. I ask if she knows a girl named Johnson in the eighth grade, Johnson being Old Colleague's last name.

"You're fucking joking," says my daughter.

I take this as a positive sign. She hasn't spoken to me in 37 hours.

"She's probably blond," I say, trying to hide my excitement, "with blue eyes."

My daughter stares at me, mouth agape. I notice -- more excitement! -- that her retainer's in! It didn't fall out of her pocket onto East Eighth Street after all!

The students -- that is, the entire student body -- of the middle school where my daughter has been doing time, were evacuated from the building on Monday while police dogs cased the joint. When this latest bomb threat was determined to be yet another in a long line of fake bomb threats, a cop allowed my daughter to pet one of them. One of the dogs, not the cops.

"He licked my hand," my daughter told me.

Which is what I feel like doing whenever the evil forcefield that surrounds her falls away for a nanosecond.

* * *

"He licked my hand."

Those were my daughter's last words, until now.

"Do you know how many blond-blue-eyed Johnsons there are in that fucking craphole?" she says from the passenger seat, her retainer flashing in the sun streaming through the moon roof.

I consider mentioning that her graduating class at the alternative school will consist of less than fifty students, but I think better of it. Instead, I reapply my sunglasses and turn Lady Gaga up to warp ten.

I'm absolutely mad about Lady Gaga. She positively sends me. My daughter wanted to send me to a home when she found out about this. She'd asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and I told her a Lady Gaga CD.

"You're perverted," she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. "How do you even know about Lady Gaga?"

My daughter thinks I live in a cave when it comes to contemporary culture. She thinks I'm totally in the dark. Blind as a bat. Head in the sand. Pretty much she's right.

But I do have my moments.

I was driving to work awhile back when I turned on the radio, which just happened to be tuned to one of my daughter's favorite stations, where some bee-otch just happened to be shouting about not wanting to be friends, just wanting to fuck (sentiments, my husband likes to remind me, I expressed to him the first time we met), and ooh-la-la, sis-boom-bah, that was it. My hair stood on end. My palms started to itch. I almost rear-ended a Miller Lite truck.

You know it when you hear it. The real thing. I wanted to lace up the Oberhamers and hit the pavement.

* * *

Old Colleague and I are commiserating about the sorry state of affairs at the middle school.

"If it's Monday, there must be a bomb threat," I say.

"How many is this now?" he says.

"Nine," I say, "maybe forty."

I'm trying to recover from my unfortunate career revelation. If I can prove an intact wit, I might still stand a chance. Maybe he'll think I was just pulling his leg about the preschool thing.

Just then my husband gets a text message. Did I mention my husband is here? He reads it, texts back, reaches for his jacket.

"Somebody's hungry," he says, "time to hit the road."

"Our daughter prefers not to be seen in public with us," I say, wittily, to Old Colleague. "She communicates by code."

"They're all the same, aren't they?" says Old Colleague, smiling, shaking his successful old head, and I'm thinking, No, no they're not all the same, not at all.

I leave, then, before Old Colleague's daughter materializes. I don't want to know, I just don't. My husband follows me through the crowd, down the main hallway, out past the entrance doors, to where our daughter is waiting at the top of the steps, brown eyes watching, iPod in place.

"What's for dinner?" she asks, too loudly, over music only she can hear.

We walk down the stairs, out onto East Eighth Street. I look over at my husband.

"There's pasta from last night," he says.

"Refried beans from Tuesday," I say.

I look back at our daughter, who shrugs and turns the music up.

And Many Happy Returns

"More than any other time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

Woody Allen