The Perplexing Visitor

We had quite a bit of snow on Sunday - enough to make the Monday morning commute stessful, and the treck into the school was messy and dangerous. I armed myself with my heavy duty stuck in a foot of white stuff - snow boots. For once, I was prepared. In my school bag, next to all of the empty plan book and teacher guides, were my trusty tennis shoes. Snow days are a good excuse to wear jeans and tennis shoes - 'I didn't want to ruin my nice shoes or dress pants.'

So after I climbed the mound of snow separating the parking lot from the sidewalk, I cautiously made it up the icy stairs and into my classroom. Surprisingly I was in an upbeat mood. I took of my boots, turned on the lights and some music and headed for my desk. Crap. The leak behind my desk that the district came and fixed last time we had a foot of snow was leaking again. Wet socks suck.

Ah well, not going to ruin my Monday! I sat down and pulled out those worn out, but oh so comfy tenny's. I put the right shoe on and as I put my left foot into the shoe, I felt something at the toe of the shoe. Chelsea is notorious for putting socks, underwear, and other random items into our shoes, so I was wondering what interesting item I might find (although I was fairly confident it felt like a sock bunched up in there).

Well, that good mood, the ready to go get them Monday morning attitude changed with the blink of an eye. And it wasn't me blinking. It was the slimy, green, striped lizard with a long skinny tail in my hand that was blinking.

Can you imagine what happened next? I shook the little booger off my hand (back into the shoe), and heaved the shoe across the room - right at my para. Yes, my sweet, innocent, kind-hearted para got a size 9 Adidas with a lizard inside launched right at her. All the while, I'm screaming - AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.

In fact the shoe was far from me, my legs were curled up under me in my chair, the stinking lizard was fearing his life inside the shoe, but I couldn't stop screaming. I'm confident my heart rate was a steady 200 beats/minute for the next hour. Fortunately a para from next door heard the commotion and came to rescue us. She calmly picked up the shoe and discarded of that lizard on the 15 degree playground.

Another teacher accused me of being too "girly" ... but I assure you that is not the case. Just a little surprised. It almost, but not quite, scared the pee out of me - quite literally. My next stop was the ladies room - to catch my breathe, and, well, avoid peeing my pants.


Now if you're wondering what a lizard was doing hibernating in my shoe, you'll have to wait until another night for that story. It truly is, a whole other story. Sigh.