Back to School and the Modern Man

Did you hear that? It's a sound that started out as a whimper but it building up to the roaring of a freight train screaming through your back yard. A sound is beginning to roar through the atmosphere like rolling thunder, only with a slightly despondent 'waaahh' at the tail end of it.

"What is this sound?" you ask. Many an untrained ear has murmured this as they locked their doors and looked to the heavens for the coming apocalypse.

Is it a jet? A thousand low riders with playing a long mournful bass note a pumpin'? Is it a million Buddhist men chanting?

No, it's much worse.

You need to visualize thousands upon thousands of people yelling, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" like Darth Vader at the end of Episode III to really get the magnitude of the issue. Teachers in the thousands are screaming out in one long loud wail. Yep, only a couple days left of summer break.

Teachers are mourning their loss of freedom, exactly unlike this country after the passing of the Patriot Act.

Speaking of freedom, thousands more parents are shouting, "Freedom!" like William Wallace did before attacking the Jews in the movie Braveheart and freeing all of Scotland from whatever people are blaming them for now.

These screaming teachers and parents are creating conflicting sounds are creating quite the cacophony, kind of like a Motley Crue concert, only much more melodic.

What about the students, you ask? They're too groggy from sleeping 14 hours and using the rest of their day for bad daytime television and violent video games to really care. Just give them a Red Bull on the first day and send them to school before they realize their summer is gone.

Yes, the S.S. Summer is about to sail. I've got to shave EVERY DAY! I've got to wear a TIE. I've got to WAKE UP before the sun comes up. My God! I actually have to SHOWER!

It's like summer is a wet bar of soap. I feel like I'm trying to grip the bar and am staggering around and around, just barely keeping it from hitting the ground and sliding away for ever. Only I'm realizing I'm no longer outside and having fun, but in a prison, and dropping the soap, well, that's really just a bad, bad, bad idea.

Yes, life moves on. We can kick and scream and complain or we can figure we've got 184 days to make an actual difference in our jobs, unlike about 95% of the other people out their working for a living. I'm looking forward to helping the world be a little better place. So, I'm just glad I got to enjoy myself this summer, spend some quality time with the family, and I know that summer will come again. I'm happy helping the cute (raving), intelligent (hormonal), middle school students move towards successful adult lives.

But excuse me for a moment. Cover your ears. I've got to scream really, really loudly....


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH.