The Here and Now

Pre-teens love attention.
The love to be looked at, laughed at, emulated.
They love to be stars.

However, many of them are still growing a sense of humor. They sometimes remind me of infants just learning how to hold things.

And what does that funny little infant do with everything in arms reach?
They put in their mouth.

I have a student.
He gets and holds the attention of the entire class by shoving things in every orifice of his head.
Typically, he stores his pencil in his nose.
Sometimes two pencils.
Sometime they end up in his ear.

One time he tried to hold it in his eye. That was fairly unsuccessful.

He finds great joy in picking his nose with his writing utensils and then lending them out to his friends.

Once he got a tiny jingle bell stuck in his ear.

Needless to say, he is a fascinating young boy.

Today he took his little game a step further. He found something far more exciting to stick in his mouth than a tiresome pencil eraser.

He found the power cord to his laptop.

He started shaking like an earthquake and fell off his seat.
I jumped from my chair, my job flashing before my eyes.
His eyes rolled back in his head, body still tense and twitching.

Then he started laughing.

The cord still in his mouth.

My life is never dull enough.