Overheard at Work, vol. XLI

Was it me, or did this week seem incredibly long? I think the bit of gorgeous weather we had made it super hard to imagine being at work all day, and the longer days make all the time somehow go slower.

And now it's the weekend again and it's NOT EVEN 50 OUT! Boo.

The Sudoku Series, set in the Education Center:
One teen called it "Soodookie."
And then one teen ridiculed another for calling it by the wrong name: "You call it Sodoku because you're SO dumb."

Me: I'm a woman and I'm alive!
Kid: LIAR!

Teen: I'm a gangster. [He was saying it with irony, I promise.]
Me (singing): I'm a hustler baby, I just want you to know.
Teen: I wrote that song.

One example of why I have a thick skin:
While warming up in my play production class, we were shaking out our arms and legs, and, afterward, a 9 year old said, "Annie! Your arm flab was shaking so much!"

A 10 year old, singing: Yookle Dandy went to town!
And we both exploded in laughter for minutes.

Kids chanted together about adjectives, some thing they'd learned at school, I'm sure, and another interrupted: I prefer interjections!

Overheard at Work, vol. XL

Well, THAT was a blur of a week.

By Wednesday, I hadn't even collected any quotes. And when things are particularly busy, I barely have time to write them down. Or, rather, type them in notes on my phone.

Me: We're going to do a special activity today.
Kids: ONLY FOR GIRLS?!
Me: Yep, it's just girls today.
Girl: Are we practicing kissing pillows?!

Colleague A: [Something something something] Bieber fever!
Colleague B: Beaver fever?!
Colleague A: (laughing hysterically) BIEBER fever!
Colleague B: That was my radio name...Beaver.

Teen, to me, as we happened to take the same route home: Do you cross streets like a grandma?
Me: WHAT?! No! Sometimes I cross there and then walk on that side of the street.
Teen: That's so white.

Me, to a new kid: Did you have fun your first week?
Kid: Yes.
Me: What did you do this week? You come in and do your homework?
Kid: Oh no! I forgot to do my homework!
Me: It's Friday.
Kid: Oh yeah.

In Which I Complain about Seasons 3 and 4 of How I Met Your Mother

While the first two seasons of HIMYM were charming and clever and moving, the next two seasons just prove the FUTURE seasons' terrible incontinuity and draaaaaaaaaaggedness.

You know what I mean.

FIRST, LET'S DISCUSS JASON SEGEL'S HAIR
I was trying to figure out what movie Segel was in during those years because his hair is a HOT mess in Season 3. I can't figure it out. Maybe, I Love You, Man.

FUN WITH GUEST STARS
Not as many before-they-were-famous appearances as in the previous seasons, but there are cameos by Janice from Friends and the guy who played Hooch on Scrubs.

Hooch is crazy.

EVERYONE IS PREGNANT. I THINK.
Towards the end of Season 4, Alyson Hannigan begins to spend an awful lot of time behind large purses, laundry baskets, bowls of popcorn, and lying around in bathrobes.

Hannigan is out of the series for a few weeks. They even make a gimmick out of it by having Barney offend her with a horrible joke.

However, she returns at the very end of the season and is still hiding behind big bags and, lamely, in one instance, holding up a shiny 31 sign for the season finale episode set on Ted's 31st birthday.

Then, Cobie Smulders falls to the same fate. But in the season finale, she looks slim.

My guess is that their shooting schedule had to be done out of order to accommodate all the breeders.

INTERESTING DETAILS
The clock in the main apartment is set to 4:20. Heh heh heh.

LET'S JUST GET ON WITH IT, or QUESTIONS OF CONTINUITY
OK. I couldn't help but notice every time future Ted talks to his kids, the date under them reads 2029.

These kids are definitely in their late teens at that point.

Which means that Ted better meet their mother THIS YEAR if his character is going to have enough time to meet her, fall in love, and get her knocked up in time for them to turn 16 in 2029. Amirite?

The season finale introduces that Ted becomes a professor and that the mother is in his class. Of course, I've seen most of seasons 5, 6, and 7 already, and they've dropped the ball on this completely recently.

This is what is making me lose my patience with the show, this season particularly.

Remember the title! And give us what you promised!

Overheard at Work, vol. XXXIX

Um.

It's mid-March?

How did that happen?

Wasn't it Halloween, like...yesterday?

Discussing the singing competition I'm helping run:
Colleague: Any winners in the group?
Me: Yeah, even a couple dark horses.
Colleague: Don't be racist.

Lateral lisp kid is jumping up and down at colleague:
Me: Do you have to pee? You're doing the pee pee dance!
Kid: No, I'm just wiggling cuz I want to.

Commenting on the particularly lovely weather one day:
7-year-old boy: It's so warm outside. And...delightful.

Expressing a litany of movies he wants to see, a 9-year-old stopped on one:
Kid: It's so COMEDOUS!
Me: You mean, like it's funny?
Kid: Yeah!
Me: Comedic.

I Almost Died Today

So, I was on the bus today. Sitting in a seat by the window, across from the back door.

About halfway through the ride, I was overwhelmed by the smell of shitty men's body spray.

You know that smell.

A fragrance that transports you back to middle school dances in the mid- to late 90s, when you slow danced at the end of the night to K-Ci and JoJo.

It smells like what I imagine Justin Bieber smells like.

I can't deny it's a scent that used to arouse me. But what 12-year-old girl could ever deny the smell of Axe?

Today, at one of the stops, I noticed that the back bus door wasn't opening and then the woman sitting next to me suddenly shot up and bolted to the front of the bus.

I thought I'd freaked her out with the Glee playlist playing on my iPod.

But then I looked down and there was what looked like smoke coming in the open door from the outside.

I figured the engine was busted and we'd have to disembark and find another bus.

But it was a cloud of body spray.

A freak accident had occurred!

The open door had lodged a spray bottle against the side of the bus and was pressing it, sending Axe fumes into the bus, only a couple feet away from me.

The spray continued until a man valiantly kicked the bottle out of the bus. And I noticed an acrid taste in the back of my mouth, as I tried hard not to inhale any more of the too-sweet cologne.

I gulped fresh air the next time the bus stopped and the back door opened.

What a horrible obituary headline that would have been: Bus Full of People Dead by Asphyxiation from Double Pits to Chesty Men's Cologne Spray.

Overheard at Work, vol. XXXVIII

Spent Sunday in bed with what turned out to be a 12-hour flu. Didn't feel all that great the rest of the week, even though it was terrible timing to be sick, as I had a few big things on my agenda this week...

Still, the kids keep me laughing!

"I'll turn that frown upside down!"--a 9-year-old, on Monday afternoon, after I had dragged myself out of my bed to attend a meeting. Even the oldest sayings in the book can seem brand new out of the right mouth!

"Hey! What word starts with F and ends with U-C-K?...You little...FIRETRUCK!"--I punished the 11-year-old boy who said this, and YET...it's pretty darn clever.

Later in the week, the same kid called one of our teens "annoyinger than a dancing rabbit." WHERE DO THEY COME UP WITH THESE THINGS??

During a game of Sneaky Statues where the theme was "Scary Monsters," the "janitor" commented that someone wasn't moving and she answered with, "I'm trying to rip out your soul, but you keep not letting me move!" (Only in one of my drama classes would you hear a sentence like that.)

"I was a born with an afro. I had mad hair!"--a teen, a propos of nothing.

While chatting with one of our work study students (who has long hair AND a long, flowing beard), I asked him if we'd changed his life. Of course, he agreed. Then, I asked one of the teens if the work study student had changed his life, and he said, "Yeah. I want to grow a beard now."