When it comes to push and shove, I'm there (even when my friends (DON'T) need me

"Hey Joe!" I yell as he passed by my classroom doorway, "When are calling hours?" He paused, thinking. Our mutual friend, Cathy, had just lost her mom earlier this week. "Friday from three to six," he finally said. "Thanks, Joe," I told him before he disappeared, "Maybe I'll see you there."

On Friday, I smiled ruefully as I pulled into the crowded parking lot shortly after 3. Happy for the turn-out, I still couldn't help but feel a slight pang of jealousy. At 93, Hilda had more admirers in the first few minutes of her calling hours than I have had over the entire span of my 48 years.

Maneuvering my big truck around the packed cars, I have to determine whether to park elsewhere (and walk...I shuddered) or somehow navigate my Titan between a small sports car and a shallow ravine. I have 4-wheel drive, I decided, leaving a generous three centimeters between myself and the Maserati.

Pulling open the door to the funeral home, I was immediately greeted by the director who solemnly led me to an inner room where a service was being held. "No, no no," I whispered. "I'm here for calling hours for my friend Cathy's mom." I dug in my heels as he pushed me along. "That's right," he murmured in my ear, still propelling me forward, "The service has just begun." I wasn't sure if our intimate interaction was supposed to be turning me on or frightening me. I've read both genres of this type of fiction. I began to fight as he continued shoving me forward. My foot crossed the threshold in the middle of the 23rd Psalm. Now I was committed. The pastor paused for the briefest of moments as heads turned my way. Cathy, seated in the front, frowned and tapped her wristwatch at me.

"I did NOT," Cathy interrupted, "Why do you insist on making yourself the center of attention where-ever you go? No one even noticed you!"

I quickly found a seat in the back and tried to make myself as inconspicuous as possible.

Cathy snorted. "Yeah. Inconspicuous. Did it occur to you to wonder why I didn't tell you about the Memorial Service? We were trying for dignified."

The pastor then began going on about the fabulous attributes of Cathy's mom. Her love of family. Her skill of cooking. Her ability to send the perfect card at the perfect time. On time. He glared at me. Someone raised a hand, heavenward and yelled, "Tell it to her, Brother!" I think it was Cathy's husband, Lee.

"Isn't it a crime to make things up about people?" Cathy asked.  "We were having a perfectly lovely Memorial Service until you showed up."

It was a brief service ("Because you missed the first half," snarled Cathy.). The director released us, starting with the back row. I tucked out quickly, unable to make eye contact with him after our encounter. Waiting on a bench outside, I sat there, fuming and embarrassed, as Joe's truck pulled into the parking lot. The surge of accompanying adrenaline that I experienced would have enabled me to lift his vehicle and toss it easily into the shallow ravine. Unfortunately, my Titan was blocking the access. "I thought we were friends," I yelled as he and his family made their way, warily, towards me, "I made it a POINT not to blog about how you accidentally hung the school's flag upside down that one time but all bets are off now, buddy!" 

When I was through yelling, we went in to pay our respects to Cathy's family. Cathy brushed by me to greet Joe. "Thanks for coming," she said, embracing him. He peered at me, smiling, over her shoulder. "Sorry we were a little late," he told her. "I'm just glad you could make it at all," she reassured him. SERIOUSLY!?!

Ransom rabbit: Why Traci should have never left her bunny behind

I am not a hostile person by nature. I'm more of a live and let live type of gal. Typically, I mind my own business. But THIS HAS GOT TO STOP! A girl can only handle so much! For over a WEEK...and well past its Easter expiration date...a GIANT basket of chocolate-y goodness has been sitting on the top cubby in the hallway outside my friend Traci's classroom.

I've mentioned her before. She is ridiculously regimented regarding her diet and fitness. I once watched her take a bite of brownie before immediately reconsidering and spitting it in the garbage; declaring it not worth the calories. I believe that was the same day I ate a sticky Skittle off the ground. To counterbalance her healthy habits, I often find myself buying two Snicker Bars from the vending machine rather than the self-rationed one per day of which I am accustomed. It's what friends do.

What friends DON'T do, TRACI...is leave a container of calories within easy reach of a not-so-strong-willed colleague. I've checked and re-checked those camera angles in the hall. I even went so far as to helpfully adjust the basket so that a strong breeze from, perhaps, a quickly passing person ("Run faster, Geri," I hissed as she raced by the unbalanced bunny basket fifty times or so.) might accidentally up-end it. Some would call it fate. No such luck. At my wit's end, I finally begged the custodial staff for a hammer with which to smash Traci's molded mascot to pieces. Apparently, the custodial staff are under strict orders to NEVER provide me with anything resembling a weapon. I have no idea why. All I know is that it is after hours...and the halls are practically deserted. Recent school construction has resulted in ladders laying around...and ceiling panels left open for an entrepreneurial woman who has watched Mission Impossible and taken notes. The only thing left of that bunny when we get back will be dust.

6/15/2018 How it ended: "I'm melting! Melting!
Oh, what a world...What a world!"

Team Four doesn't brain-"storm"--We brain-"tsunami"

I always feel sorry for people newly-introduced to Team Four. From an outsider's perspective, we look like a high-functioning, well-adjusted, collaborative group of educators ("Wait," interrupts my friend Tyler, "by outsider do you mean outside of an English-speaking nation or outside the atmospheric-boundaries of Planet Earth?"), but inside our little world, that perception adjusts fairly quickly. "I'll say," remarked our friend Roxanne who recently watched Kelly re-deal the same hand of cards during our weekly Euchre Lunch FIVE times before getting it right.

Our intentions are always good. They just tend to occasionally be long-winded and irrelevant. Take our recent discussion about this year's New York State test. No longer timed, we wondered what to do with the students who would be held in silent (yeah-right) captivity while others took longer to finish. Perhaps one room could be designated to be the work room for students who were carefully taking their time. Great idea! "But how will we know when other rooms are finished?" asked Kelly. Good point. We weren't, according to the slew of state-induced paperwork, suppose to interrupt testing sites. A technological marvel, Kelly suggested Google Messaging one another. The rest of us looked at her blankly. I still have an aol account. Geri is still upset that Microsoft limited her Word Art options. And Rachel is threatening to flashdrive all of her folders because the school is taking away our hard-drives.

Taking a break from banging my head against the cupboard door in between Rachel handing me cookies, I suggested another option. "We could try those tin-can phones." Inspired, Geri jumped in. "How about we leave our windows open and we could send messages via flag?" Morse code was ruled out as too loud, invalidating our signed New York State paperwork. Smoke signals were also scratched off as an option as we were pretty sure that fire regulations would frown upon that strategy. Kelly, exasperated, sighed and rolled her eyes. Rachel, our team leader, the one we look to in times of trouble, finally resolved the issue. "How about we just text each other?" If only all the problems of the world could be solved this easily!

And first-place for the prize-winning acrostic in an office setting goes to...

Normally the sweetest person on the planet, Sydney Lynn HATES asking for help. "I'll do it myself," she'll snap peevishly. This one, small, barely-worth-noticing character flaw has occasionally worked to her detriment. "What do you mean there's an out-standing warrant on my license?" she had asked incredulously, when she was but an itty-bitty brand-new baby driver."Did you ever actually receive verification that the court applied your fun-filled Driver Safety Course against your ticket(s)?" her father responded gently. My attempts to sweet-talk the judge were futile when Sydney got into a snit when he referred to her as "young lady." I wonder if she would have accepted my help in the form of bail money? Fortunately, we didn't have to find out.

Now located 3,000 miles away from me, opportunities to offer help are few and far between. So when my daughter called in a crisis, I was quick to respond. "What are you doing?" Brad asked, not actually caring but trying to be polite. Surrounded by mountains of photo albums, I couldn't see him so I yelled, "I need pictures of Sydney to reflect the letters in her name." My husband didn't answer, instead grabbing the remote and putting on the Kansas City game. My head popped up out of the pile like a gopher. "Don't you want to know why?" He didn't. "Why?" he asked. "Sydney's office is running a contest for the most creative presentation of an acrostic," I told him. "Uh-huh," he muttered, watching Salvador Perez step up to bat. "Do you even know what an acrostic is," I said, accusingly. He sighed and muted the TV. I immediately warmed to my audience. "An acrostic is a poem of structured poetry where each letter in your name represents you in some personalized fashion." Brad's eyes flicked to the screen as Salvy raced past first and was rounding second. I continued, "For example, Sydney snowboards so I'm looking for a picture of her snowboarding." Brad sighed again as the big catcher crossed home plate, the man on the screen and the man in the living room both simultaneously looking heavenward. "She scuba dives too," Brad said, his attention fully on me know, as God intended. I frowned. I didn't have any pictures of Sydney scuba-diving. Four hours of photo shopping later, Jon Snow and Michael Scott joined Sydney on a fictionalized underwater adventure.

The next day, I was 5/6th finished with our project. "I can't think of what to do with her N," I complained to my friend Kirsten. We brainstormed for awhile before she asked, "What picture would you include if you weren't restricted by a letter?" I pointed to the picture of Syd and I in London at King's Cross Station re-enacting Harry Potter's magical entrance to Platform Nine and 3/4s. Kirsten suddenly grinned. "Where are you there?" she prompted. I frowned. "Platform Nine and 3/4s," I told her again. "Where?" she repeated. Ah! The lightbulb moment! "Platform NINE and 3/4s," I shouted as we high-fived.

I was so excited, describing Sydney's acrostic to Savannah in vivid detail. She couldn't press X like you did two paragraphs ago when you couldn't bear to hear even one more detail about this stupid little project. In true Mosiman-fashion, though, my eldest daughter couldn't just compliment me and tell me that I was clearly the most talented and creative person on the planet. No-oo-oo. She had to find SOMETHING to criticize. "No one on the West Coast is going to find Yosemite interesting, Mom. It's practically in their backyard." I huffed indignantly. Just one MORE reason to not like the West Coast obviously. "But did it occur to you that New York City might be a big deal?" I slapped my forehead. Duh! I adjusted my N to include NYC. Then I remembered Carlo's' Bakery in New Jersey and squeezed that in too before I finalized the project and sent it off to Sydney for printing.

"That looks great," Brad said admiringly, before, in true Mosiman-fashion, he added, "I'm surprised you didn't include Niagara Falls. Not everyone has one one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World practically in their backyard. "

End of story. Sydney won. This is the last time I help her.