Meter Stick

When you close a school, there is just a whole lot of stuff -- the kind of equipment and mess that accumulates in the business of teaching children to DO things. I've taught mathematics and science and social studies for years now, and so, sitting in the corner of my classroom, there was this prodigious collection of meter sticks and yard sticks. Most of them will travel all neatly bundled to my new school to continue life in another classroom, where other students will use them to measure assorted bits and pieces of their world (and more than likely conduct unauthorized mock battles whenever they believe they can get away with it).

However, one night a few weeks ago, as I was agitating away about all that needed doing to make this all occur, and ticking away my fussy little lists of things to do, I happened to mention the meter sticks... Instantly, Master latched onto the notion, like a dog with a bone, and insisted that He needed to have some meter sticks. I knew in that instant that I'd made a tactical error, but the die was cast. So, yesterday, as I packed and sorted and bundled and cleaned, I selected two suitable and sturdy meter sticks, and brought them home to Him.

He was thrilled, and immediately and enthusiastically applied the beastly things to my backside. Somewhere between a cane and a paddle is the realm of the meter stick. They have the whippiness of a cane with more heft and EDGES! I was sure it was cutting me with every stroke (it wasn't -- didn't). It just made me want to shriek, and was even worse because in my head was the knowledge that I'd brought it home myself. Nevermind that I had no real choice; the fact that I'd carried it home with my own hands made me furious.

And the meter stick is humiliating. Not a smoothly crafted, professionally made implement meant for spanking, but a simple measuring stick, dragged from my classroom hours before, and now sitting rudely in the corner of the bedroom for the sole purpose of inflicting pain on me. What was I thinking? Not thinking. Just obeying. Doing as I was told. Because I was told.

And there it sits. In broad daylight today. And there will undoubtably be meter sticks in my classrooms. Will they ever again look the same to me?

swan