I'm living in a strange place right now. As I'm trying to figure out my life and only working evenings, I've found myself with a lot of free time in the mornings. My mother, always eager to be involved in my financial life, took the liberty of suggesting me a job. Turns out that there was a 3-week opening for a Teacher's Assistant position at the intermediate school she works at. She teaches grade 4, and the position was for grade 3, so I was fine with it. The 3-week stint is now over and it left me with some good memories. And some fantastic quotes.
6. "Before it was Dogzilla." - This quote was said after I commented to the child on the strangeness of him reading a book titled "Kat Kong". Being instantaneously fascinated by the prospect of a book series that domesticates everyone's favorite monster movies, I tried desperately to get my hands on these two books. The teacher of the classroom said they were favorites of the children, which piqued my interest all the more.
Finally, I got my hands on not one, but both of these books. A quick scan of the back covers taught me all I needed to know about the books. Like most childrens' books, it featured a little text and a lot of pictures. However, what separates these two books from your run-of-the-mill crap was the hybrid between real photography and hand-drawn images. All the backgrounds for these two books were colorfully hand-drawn, whereas the characters (dog, cat and the rodents that inhabit the towns the monsters trash) are superimposed photographs of the author's pets. If there has even been a better concept - wait, nevermind. There has never been a better concept for childrens' books.
But how were the storylines? I'll be honest, Kat Kong was a large disappointment. Dogzilla, on the other hand, made me a better person. It started off with all the mice having a fun-ol' barbecue. How nice. The only problem was that the smell of all that meat awakened a horrific beast from the depths of the earth - Dogzilla. As expected, Dogzilla then terrorized the city amognst all sorts of pet puns. Eventually, the mice got wise and chased Dogzilla back into the crater from which he (or she) came. The book ends peacefully...or so you would think. Unfortunately, the mice forgot about one fearsome prospect - puppies. This dark twist of events is driven home by a chilling final page that features a picture of extremely happy puppies crawling out of a crater.
Don't believe me? Do a Google book search for it. You won't be disappointed.
5. "1 Million...1 Billion..." - It was during Math class. The teacher began by saying "Anything times zero is zero. So what is zero times a million?" That's when the first part of this quote transpired. The teacher continued: "No. Anything times zero is zero. What's a billion times zero?" Then the child responded with the second part of the quote.
Maybe the kid was just having a hard day. But I don't think so.
4. "My sister looks at naked people." - This one perked up during devotions. We were talking about doing bad things, or something like that, and this one girl decided to clean out her sister's closet for the classroom. When she described it, it sounded more like a one-time accident on her sister's part. I didn't really get a chance to find out, though. The teacher (who was ironically a substitute for that day) scolded her and commanded she speak no more of it.
3. "I want to go home or I'm going to kick my face open!" - This was from my favorite kid. In fact, he may have been my favorite because he said things like this. It was randomly in the middle of Math class. Again, the teacher told him that saying such things were inappropriate. I probably would have agreed, if I weren't so busy laughing.
2. "Why do you smell books?" - I loved Bearenstein Bears books growing up. So when I saw the plethora of them in the elementary school library, I could not hesitate to pick one up. Flipping through the pages it brought back all sorts of memories of the stories, the feelings, the lessons, the adventures, the smells...yes, I mean that. Those books had a certain smell to them. The smell of home. The smell of comfort. The smell of familiarity. Was this book the same?
So I smelt it. I tried looking around quickly to see if anyone was looking before I did so. I must have missed one though. Maybe it was because she was so short. Anyways, she hit me up with the above-listed comment as soon as I pulled the book away from my face. I answered with the truth: I was smelling my childhood.
1. "Your wife is my teacher!" - This requires no explanation. As said above, my mother teaches grade 4, not my wife. I'm not married. Yet, this child obviously could not fathom this possibility. I guess at the age of nine you don't have that built-in ability to tell when two people are thirty-six years apart in age.
Maybe he was just having a hard day. But I highly doubt it.
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