A Call for a Return to Basic Black Friday!

I teach because I care. And to avoid hosting holiday parties.

Hi there, readers! In the first miracle of the holiday season, I am writing a new post within seven days

of writing my last post. Amazing! As is most of the U.S., I am preparing for Thanksgiving on Thursday. Tomorrow I will be helping my mom with the cooking for our Thanksgiving festivities, which will be held at noon on Thursday at my cousin's house. I am really glad we don't have Thanksgiving at my house! In fact, becoming a teacher has all been a carefully plotted effort to avoid hosting holiday gatherings in my home. Without a huge paycheck, I can afford only a modest house, which basically renders my living quarters useless for gatherings of 30+ people. I am amazed at my foresight!

Now, I don't know about you, but I tend to consume more food than I usually do on Thanksgiving. Also, since I will be off work, and I have no children or visiting relatives to entertain, I will be blessed with most of the day left to do WHATEVER I WANT. These two factors will culminate in the only logical result: endless hours of napping while attempting to watch last week's episode of How to Get Away With Murder. I'm sure that after restarting it approximately 752 times, and sleeping through it almost that many times, I will come to the conclusion that the Taco Bell Chihuahua killed Sam.

But, I digress. My real reason for writing this post is to say that Black Friday has gotten totally out of hand in the past ten years. It has slowly become an event that doesn't just include a sane person's shopping hours on Friday, but has also taken over Thanksgiving. I worked retail the entire time I was in college, and I can assure you that if anyone working in a store at 10 PM on Thanksgiving night smiles at you, it is only because gritting their teeth and sporting a maniacal grin is the only way they can keep themselves from bashing you over the head with that Farberware frying pan you have been examining and asking them questions about for the past 30 minutes.

Nobody wants to work on Thanksgiving night, or at 2 AM on Friday morning, or at 6 AM on Friday morning! Retail workers do not get a lot of time off, and don't have the luxury of having their weekends as protected leisure time. Plus, they have to deal with the entire gamut of psychoses that presents itself in human beings, a fact to which I can personally attest from experience! Why not open stores at the normal time on Friday, or even a little later to allow workers to recover from their tryptophan induced post-Thanksgiving hangovers?

Nothing captures the magic of the holiday season
quite like riding at top speeds in the back of an
ambulance after being thrown from an escalator!

People could still shop just as much, and the only consequence would be that daytime crowds might

be a little bit larger. To make up for the lack of drama and frenzy that doing away with insane Black Friday retail hours would bring, I propose that all stores simply run their escalators as fast as they will go, and set their automatic doors to open and close at random intervals without warning. Both of these changes would certainly make up for the lack of Black Friday excitement, and would replace it with the thrill of riding at top speeds in the back of an ambulance!

Also, since we now have that amazing thing called the Internet, why not just sit at home on your couch in your pajamas on Thanksgiving night and shop some of the Black Friday sales that online retailers will surely present? That way, between commercials during that Law and Order marathon, you can purchase DVDs of tv shows that are already on Netflix for rock-bottom prices! I am sure there has to be some poor guy who will have to work on Thanksgiving night at the Amazon.com offices, but at least he won't have to deal with half-crazed, overly full shoppers in person! Instead, he can also watch the Law and Order marathon while getting the site running again after that amazing 60% off deal on the complete series of Saved by the Bell: The New Class caused it to crash.

Personally, for me Black Friday is aptly named because I will spend half of the day napping and looking at the black behind my eyelids. I really dislike shopping in person, and consider a trip to the mall to be tantamount to attending a three-hour spinning class at a gym where everyone is more attractive and thinner than I am (Also known as something so horrifying that I would sooner watch a twenty-four hour nonstop marathon of Mama's Family than participate in it). I am pretty sure that retail workers feel the same way about working on Thanksgiving or on Black Friday.

So, my advice is that you stay home on Thanksgiving night, and that you don't go to the store on Friday morning any earlier than the time at which you would have woken up with a hangover on any given Sunday morning when you were between the ages of 18 and 24. Stay home with your family and give thanks for the fact that you have the luxury of worrying about things like when to buy Christmas presents, rather than about much more dire things, like the fact that you have never seen an episode of Game of Thrones, and therefore can't understand half the memes on the Internet. I promise, you won't be sorry!

Teacher image courtesy of http://www.fitcodebootcamp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/becoming-teacher.jpg

Ambulance image courtesy of http://www.hanoverfiredept.com/wp-content/uploads/Hanover_Ambulance_32.jpg

My New Holiday Poem!

I hope this woman realizes that she was George's
second choice. That dress ain't got nothing on my
yoga pants with the sweat stain on the butt!

Hi there readers! I have been on hiatus for such a long time that some of you were probably wondering if I had actually realized my (former) dream of George Clooney becoming Mr. Audrey Broome, and if I had run away with old George to a private island somewhere. While, sadly, this is not what happened, and while I know George Clooney did get married, I still know in my heart that I was probably the only girl for him, but that, in the interest of wanting me to have time to, like, work, and do creative stuff like writing my blog, he let me go and released me from our romantic bond. And then he married that other lady.

Anyway, enough about that. I like to write rhyming poetry, which I am sure should never be critiqued by anyone who knows anything about writing poetry, because I think there would be so many red editing marks all over the page that I would think I was looking at a sign announcing changes in the terror alert level. While I have no idea how to properly punctuate or capitalize when writing poetry, I have improvised! If poor punctuation causes you to get the vapors, and lack of appropriate capitalization makes your gout flare up-well, please consider editing my poem for me and sending it back to me. I would love to have it properly formatted! While my egregious violations of conventions of punctuation and capitalization may offend you, I hope you can see past these transgressions and enjoy the gist of my poem. (Though, if you quibble over em dashes you may just want to forget it!) This poem is a holiday story from a teacher's perspective. So
, without further delay, here is the poem that I wrote in bed on my phone this morning at 3:45 AM!

The Raving (Lunatic)

Remember those famous Christmas lyrics: "It seems
so long since I could say, "Sister Suzy pushin' round
her Bissell?""

Once upon a Thursday dreary, while I

Pondered, weak and weary,

Over a precipitously large stack of

Standards, Common Core--

While I nodded, nearly napping,

Suddenly there came a tapping,

As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my classroom door.

"Tis some child come back," I muttered

"To get something he forgot before."

Only this and nothing more.

Ah, distinctly I remember

It was in the bleak November

And in the heart of each staff member

Was the need to feel her energy restore.

Eagerly I wished the morrow-

Would it end my pain and sorrow?

A feat like climbing Kilimanjaro-

To reach the day when classes were no more.

To reach that golden fabled day when all my classes were no more—

Thanksgiving break, make haste!--To thee I do implore!

And the sharpest, wheezing whistle

That emitted from the Bissell

That began after dismissal,

As the cleaners sucked detritus from the floor.

As the dirge of vacuum rumbled,

From my hand my room key tumbled,

I eyed the door and softly mumbled,

"Tis some student entreating entry at my classroom door—

Some forgetful student entreating entry at my classroom door.

He needs a book and nothing more."

My irritation grew quite quickly,

As for an hour I had fickly

Graded projects as I sickly

Coughed until my throat was sore.

"Hey, kid!" I called out weakly- 

"Come back tomorrow, not before.

You see, kid, I was just now grading

The papers I have been evading,

And my hacking cough's not fading

As you gently rap upon my classroom door.

Over my cough I scarcely heard you tap upon my classroom door-

I heard my cough and the vacuum-nothing more."

This was probably the closest
Edgar Allen Poe ever got to
celebrating Thanksgiving.

As the tapping wasn't stopping,

From my chair I came a hopping

The soles of my shoes made a popping

noise as I walked across the classroom floor-

As I walked right up to the closed door.

I turned the knob and pulled it open

While I was wishing and hoping

That I would find not a student loping

Loping outside my classroom door.

"Please be the wind," I muttered,

"Just the wind and nothing more."

This I muttered as I opened the door.

Down the hallway I was peering,

And I stood there, wondering, fearing,

Silently slinging curse words no teacher had ever slung before.

Just where was the pesky student

Who had thought it would be prudent

Rather than simply impudent

To return to class at half past four?

To return to my class at half past four?

I quickly closed the classroom door.

‘Twas nigh Thanksgiving break, but the day before.

And working on breaks I do abhor!

Back into my classroom, turning,

Irritation inside me burning

As I heard a tapping much louder than before.

"Surely that is just the vacuum,"

I said, standing just a foot back from the door.

I let my irritation settle as I calmed myself and counted to four.

Breathing gently, nothing more.

Feeling calm I flung the door open

Trying to adjust my coping

To deal with a student hoping

To get the book he left before.

The book he left so long before.

In front of me was a boy standing,

With his mother, quite demanding-

My irritation was expanding,

As I saw it was his mom, Lenore-

She was a force hard to ignore!

And Lenore, she pushed right past me,

Her lack of manners was quite ghastly,

Her son in tow but not as fast, he

Trailed her as she moved across the floor.

"Timmy forgot his book," she spouted,

"And I really strongly doubted,

Although Timmy begged and pouted,

That the test tomorrow was no more.

That the science test tomorrow was simply no more."

"There's still a test," I softly stated

"A test that has been long awaited,

Though I internally debated

If a project might be valued more-

Alternative assessment to be sure!

But on the day before vacation,

I, like teachers across the nation

Prefer traditional evaluation,

As it is much less a chore

So much less an awful chore--

The kids will work with no commotion

Like they've had a sleeping potion,

And, though, to my job I feel devotion,

Working when I'm off I do not adore.

I'd finish here, to myself I swore."

Lenore's response was raucous laughter,

Her face turned red from alabaster,

I thought it would be a disaster

That would ruin our rapport-

That would quite ruin our rapport.

But the fates were in my favor

As Lenore voiced with a waiver,

"Vacation time is there to savor,

To spend with family and friends galore—

With loving family and friends galore."

"Vacation time is not for working,

But rather, it is for shirking

As in the bed you lie there, lurking

Watching shows you've DVR'ed before

When you had time for work and nothing more.

Thanksgiving is a time for sharing,

For eating, talking, and soul bearing,

And certainly for only wearing

Pants that do not squeeze your core-

With an elastic waist and nothing more.

All other pants you must ignore!"

Suddenly my dull mood brightened,

How was this woman so enlightened?

And all my senses felt quite heightened

As I watched her sort Timmy's books out on the floor-

All Timmy's books were on the floor.

As I watched them I felt a gusting

As a typhoon wind came busting

Through the walls and windows dusting

All that was in its path and more

And I was sucked up off the floor.

As my senses faced upheaval,

I was pulled from the reprieval

Given by a parent in her retrieval

Of her child's book from the classroom floor-

The lovely lady named Lenore.

Only this and nothing more.

She understood my situation,

That teachers MUST have a vacation,

From their hard work and dedication,

So that they remain sane for a year more—

A week's vacation doth our sanity restore.

Sure, we don't work in the summer,

But we're paid less than a plumber,

Which, let's face it, is a bummer-

When we have college loans we can't ignore-

Expensive loans with interest that we simply can't ignore-

Which we may pay off, nevermore!

As the wind whipped me asunder,

Tossing me around in thunder,

And then, to my unending wonder,

I landed hard upon the floor-

With a resounding "thud" upon the floor-

The classroom around me, nevermore.

A blaring broke through my enchantment,

A beeping awful noise that went

Louder with a pitch in ascent

Like a siren breaking through my very core-

A sound I knew I'd heard before.

My eyes sprang open, staring, peering-

'Twas my alarm clock I was hearing,

A sound I always thought was shearing

Years off my life each time it I would ignore.

My alarm clock and nothing more.

No sign of Timmy and Lenore.

As realization dawned around me,

Circumstances keenly found me

Fallen from my bed, which did astound me,

As the clock read 5:44.

With the trepidation of the craven,

I peered at my wall, silently raving

As the calendar page was waving

Blown by the vent built in the floor-

Today's date read October 24-

It wasn't time for my vacation!

I got up with irritation,

And like teachers across the nation-

Got ready for the work that was in store.

My vacation, nevermore!

-Audrey V. Broome

November 2014

George Clooney image courtesy of http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03051/clooney_3051211b.jpg
Bissell vaccum image courtesy of http://www.1stflash.com/files/Janitorial-Supplies/Bissell-Upright-Vacuums.jpg
Wild Turkey image courtesy of http://www.danmurphys.com.au/media/DM/Product/750x2000/83276_0_9999_v1_m56577569842369625.jpg