Friday, October 29, 2010

CHARLOTTE'S HALLOWEEN COSTUME "MALFUNCTION"

For regular visitors to this blogsite, you may have noticed Charlotte's name cropping up lately whenever anything funny is said or done. It is not coincidental that again Charlotte is involved in an anecdote.

Halloween fell on Sunday this year, and Thursday and Friday were Parent-Teacher Conference Days so there was no school. Our principal is a cool guy, a decent and approachable man, and he allowed our middle-schoolers to wear Halloween costumes on Wednesday. Anything was tolerated except revealing clothing or real and fake weapons. I timed my curriculum so that on Costume Day we would have a quiz on material that should have been mastered. This would prevent any mischief or costume distractions during class. The quiz kept every class quiet and focused until sixth period.

Charlotte came dressed up as a green M&M candy, and she gave me an M&M as she entered the room. Her costume was a giant ball enveloping her torso and I asked her to take off the M&M ball. Charlotte informed me that it was inflatable, and she would deflate it for class.

Twenty minutes later, during the ponderous silence of the test, I slowly came to the realization I could vaguely hear a humming noise..........a very subtle, quiet, whirring. I got up from my desk, wandered around in search of the source of this humming, and then I discovered Charlotte had turned on her M&M inflator motor and was now pinned in her desk by her M&M costume which was now fully inflated. She had a distressed look on her face because the M&M had pushed her away from her desk writing surface and had also tilted her slightly backwards.

Being of strange mind and influenced by the Brezik Method of Reacting, I saw it as a hilarious situation and wanted to laugh but kept it under control. Very calmly I told Charlotte to turn off her inflator motor and deflate her M&M costume.

With a pained and embarrassed look on her face, Charlotte reached down somewhere and flipped a switch. It was then that the deflating noise started. You could make it with your mouth, right now. Breathe in deeply, and then very slowly release the air through your teeth. It was at eight seconds into the deflating that the sound of the escaping air and Charlotte's intensifyingly distressed look caused me to bust into laughter. I think the kids were relieved at my reaction, and there was some nervous snickering.

If any of them grow up and make a movie about middle schoolers, they should not neglect to put that incident into their film.

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