Beans.

Dear Bean,

What is it about you that tempts adolescent boys to hurl you through the air? You hang like a dead weight in their hands, aching to be freed temporarily from the force of gravity. You burn their fingers, making them itch with anxiety until temptation gives way to indulgence and you are flicked across the room. I watch you sail end over end as the florescent light catches your smooth surface. I watch your graceful arc and ponder your resting place...someone's eye? Someone's head? Someone's yawning mouth?

What is it about your curvatures that allows you to gain speeds exceeding 90 miles per hour as you whiz toward someone's face? Your aerodynamics are a mystery to me, science teacher that I am. You needn't much encouragement in your swiftness, for a mere flick of the wrist sends you flying.

How does your small size entice 14-year-olds to put you in puzzling places? Down a neighbor's shirt, up a nostril, in a pocket, on the floor, across the hall...I've seen you all of these places today, and more. Your conspicuous "ping" gives you away as you ricochet off desks, as does your tendency to travel in herds. Not ones or twos or threes, you are found only in dozens. The second one of you takes flight, eleven more are sure to follow on your heels.

Who are you, in your insignificant minuteness, to make grown men and women tumble to the ground? To make me mutter obscenities under my breath? To cause administrators to question my capability, colleagues to question my sanity and children to question my authority.

Lest you forget, I'll remind you: you are only, in and of yourself...a bean.

***

IF you can't tell. Today was horrendous. We did a "lab" where we simulated the Law of Superposition by layering different kinds of beans in cups.

Well that's what was supposed to happen. I'll let YOU be the science student this time and infer what happened based on your observations from the ode above. If it weren't so maddening, it would probably be funny. It's funny, right? You're getting a real laugh as you picture it, aren't you? I should be laughing right along with you!

I'm not laughing.

"Can I keep these beanzzz? Imma make soup with 'em when I get home. Or Imma eat them right now. I can eat them right now?"

I can't STAND my third block class. To the point where I can't think of one redeeming thing to say about any of them. To the point that I'm ashamed to tell you the things that were going through my mind about these children.

The only time I smiled today:

At the end of the day I was walking back to my classroom and was stopped by a severely retarded 6th-grader. I've seen him walking with the special-education students but don't know his name.

"Hayyyyy!" he said, waving frantically.

"Hey buddy!" I replied.

"Booooootiful!" he said with a grin, pointing at me.

"Well THANK YOU, sweetheart!"

He smiled shyly and blew me an awkward kiss.

I couldn't help but smile. I'll take what I can get at the end of a day like today.