When your pets are safely in their respective cages and the students are cooing and watching them in awe, all seems right with the world. However, that is just too good to be true. If this scene begins, know that it will only be the beginning of, let’s just say “a new adventure.”
I’m so glad that my students have our cute little gerbils to care for, that is, until one day we return from lunch and I see that one of our furry little companions(see previous rat-like creature remark) belly up and stiff. If this isn’t enough the other friendly class gerbil has helped himself to a snack, the feet of the dead friend.
What a way to pay tribute to a fallen roommate. Tastes like chicken I’m sure.
Now the task, once again, to keep the twenty seven year olds NOT to notice the stiff, belly-up classroom companion that they have come to love with no feet as they walk past the cage on their way back into the classroom. This is not something they teach you in college.
Little voices, again..."what's wrong with the gerbil?"
Oh no! I have failed! Damage control, must have damage control!
Before anyone can be sent back to the safety of the seats, the cage somehow becomes the most interesting item in the room. They are being drawn to it as if moths to a flame. I am bombarded with children as I become the bodyguard of this poor unfortunate creature. I am now just trying to keep myself in between the growing number of children and the gruesome scene behind me.
Okay, that's it. I take in a deep breath...
"Everyone SIT DOWN!"
The small feet scurry off to a seat. Eyes are all wide as they try to figure out what could have caused their previously calm and sweet teacher to, for lack of better words, lose it. As if a room full of small children demanding your attention each second wouldn't be enough to send someone over the edge.
All of the students are seated and I begin to think I might make it through this unscathed. Ha! Yeah right. I continue to try to be ambiguous and pretend that nothing is wrong. Yeah...it's not working...and it hasn't been.
Now to get the carcass out of the tank, I certainly don’t want to touch it! Without thinking of the fact that it will look like an episode of CSI, I grab a tissue and lay it over the body in order to extract it from the cage. I hear all of the innocent voices behind me with the questions that truthfully I didn’t want to answer.
“What happened?” “Is the gerbil okay?” “What are you doing?”
I stop mid extraction and turn to look at their worried faces.
Crap…(again). What do I say now? What else…
Make something up.
So I say, “one of our gerbils has just gone to the big gerbil wheel in the sky.”
“Is that like gerbil heaven?”
“Yes, that’s exactly where she has gone, gerbil heaven.” Leave it to a six year old to make a more profound statement than me. I turn back to the small body under the tissue.
“Are you going to bury her?” a voice asks.
I think for a minute, “Bury her…um…yes, I will take her home today and bury her. I reassure the children that this poor unfortunate gerbil will definitely get a proper burial, complete with a shoe box coffin and a small pebble headstone. I wrap the body in the tissue and place it in a plastic bag until I can take her home. At least that is what I was thinking then; of course what happened next was different.
Good ideas, great ideas and well let’s just say interesting ideas are all parts of being a teacher. The best laid plans are never that and hardly ever followed. (Even when I started this, I don’t think I actually planned on admitting my…stretched truths) When I headed for the door at the end of the day I did remember to take the dead body in the plastic bag out of the room. Unfortunately, (for whoever empties the trash) the large trashcan outside looked like much more of an appropriate grave for our friend, or at least just easier for me. Not to worry, I did say a few words as I tossed her in. “You’ve been a really good pet, thanks for not biting us, I hope we were good owners…”
Of course in the morning when the students asked…yes, she is buried in my yard beside my shade tree.
What? I have to at least make is sound good.
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