Causing a stir

Tabor very kindly had some beef he was willing to share with us at his cost.  It pays to have a brother that is a cowboy.

It also pays to have a brother who is entertaining.

I asked him the size of the packages and he sent this:

We arranged for him to stop at my school, since I was there and since it was less out of his way than our house.  He came at lunch time so I could visit with him briefly.

It was inside recess (because winter hates me) so my class came in to see Tabor and Ruby, his traveling companion, sitting at my desk.  

Tabor told them that Ruby was a new student.

I should have told them not to believe a word he said.  Because they did.

When he stood up to go, they gaped at how tall he is.  All I could do was agree with them.

Later, they asked, "Where did the new student go?"

I told them he was joking.  It was my niece and she wasn't really a new student.

"She's REALLY tall for a third grader."

I told them he was joking.  She isn't a third grader.  I told them she is 13.

They said, "Third graders aren't thirteen!"

I told them he. Was. Joking.

It felt like any other time of the day when they weren't really picking up what I was setting down.

Later, I was in the office and Camie said, "Thelma, your brother is tall!"

I said, "I have two other brothers about the same height and my sisters are tall too.  I am the short one."

She said, "You grew up among redwoods."

Pretty much.

Later in the day, I caused my own stir.  My students were doing a grammar assignment.  They were fixing the punctuation and capitalization on sentences, then they had to write their own sentence.

It began:

My grandparents are ______________________________

They wrote things like my grandparents are nice, my grandparents are loving, my grandparents are old, my grandparents are rich.

One student wrote:  My grandparents will break your ankles.

It was so unexpected that I started laughing and couldn't stop.  My eyes were watering.  They were at first looking at me like I'd lost my mind, then they started laughing too.

They said, "We've never seen you laugh that much."

I don't know.  It wasn't that funny, it just tickled me.

Sometimes when that persistent Jack Frost won't stop, you just need to laugh.