Your Unofficial Guide To Home Tutoring (5)

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Long pants. NEVER wear shorts or a skirt to their homes. I rarely wear a skirt ANYway, just sayin'....NEVER unnecessarily expose ANY flesh to ANY part of their home. The furniture. The animals rubbing against you. The fleas climbing your legs from the floor. Small toddling, never beenj bathed since birth siblings with a foam of snot bubbles and a diaper so full it drags on the floor behind them, trying to clim in your lap. Scabies, lice...God knows what-all. You THOUGHT I was kidding about the showers afterwards. I have FAMILY for crying out loud, and my own well cared for pets.

Wear a hat, even on warm days. Here I am, big ole fat guy almost sixty. I perspire THINKing about spring. I wear sweatshirts and a knit cap with my ponytail tucked in on 85 degree, humid spring day while I'm tutoring. It's the only way.

Hand in hand with the above: get Purell, Clorox Wipes, and some Kwell Lotion and Shampoo. The Purell after you leavfe their house and get in your car. Teach yourself not to touch your face. The Clorox wipes are for the placemeat and the bottom of your seat cushion, and the soles of your shoes.

Routinely check the soles of your shoes for cockroach eggcases. If you step on a female roach carrying an egg case, it's as hard as an appleseed and can get glued to the sole of your shoe by mom's squished remains, then BOOM, you've got roaches! Wear cheap old sneaker with the treads worn off, much less chance of bringing home an egg case. Once a week, a Kwell treatment. You only need the lotion in the event of a scabies outbreak, but keep that shampoo on hand. NEVER hang your coat or hat where they hang theirs, a great way to get lice. As a matter of afact, just keep them on as extra protection.

"Take off your hat and coat. Aren't you hot?" No thanks, I have a condition. If I take off my layers of restraining outer garment my skin will peel off and run the hell away screaming.

I tutored two elementary children in one family for about siz month, as they were chronically ill, and had broken bones. The 'sitter'--an apt name, as that was all I ever saw thi GIGANTIC woman do--stepped on the two of them one day as they lay on the floor coloring. She stepped on one's leg, breaking it, stumbled, trying to get her balance, and stepped on the other one's arm, breaking IT in several places. Thank GOD she didn't FALL on them! Anyways, the entire time I tutored them, the whole family of four kids, three adults (don't ask-you wouldn't believe me if you ever saw Dad, anyway, but it's not like you would covert the two women), the babysitter and HER family all had head lice and could not get rid of them. Kwell. Keep it on hand. Once a week, whether you THINK you need it or not. Remember your hat too.

The not touching your face thing is VERY important. The average person touches their face 18 times a minute. A nervous person (and believfe you me, these people will make you as jumpy as Gabrielle Giffords at an NRA Gun Show) 22-35 times a minute. This is the best way to transmit disease. Adn these people will ALWAYS be sick. Undiagnosed illnessess that stretch on for months. They grow impetigo like a mature male grows a mustache. Pink eye? Hard to tell, their eyes and lids are usually bloodshot, bagged and swollen, ringed with dark circles, and inflamed as hell, redder than Satan's hairless testicles.

Ringworm (a fungus) from their festering cats. The whole family (you WILL hear about all their relatives) are like a bunch of reject from a communicalbe disease ward. Do not touch them, shake hands, accept any food or drink in their house, or even bring your own. They will reach out without asking and drink from yyour water/soda bottle. Touch your food or break off some for themselves. With their...ulp...hands. Do NOT use their bathroom, it's just...wrong. I could tell you stories but some things are better left to the imagination-or not...just don't use the bathroom. Wear an adult diaper if you have incontinence problems.

Okay, their toilet rarely flushes because it is rarely flushed...The toilet seat...The filthy soap with the Chia Pet hairdo...The sink...The tub...There, I said it, sorry...let's move on...

DON'T go in the bathroom.

>(c) 2011 by Dean Davis of Living World Ecology Center. Used with permission given by Dean Davis.