{1}, {2}, {3}, {4}
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.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Your Unofficial Guide To Home Tutoring (4)
{1}, {2}, {3}
click here to return to Cedar's Mountain
Get used to using the phone. A lot. None of these home tutored kids will ever call you if they are not going to be there. Ever. You have to call. Every day. Several times. Leaving messages. I have one now that I have to call, leave a message, and if he doesn't call back, I now have to call his Mom, who will call him. Then she'll call me back to let me know she got him up. Then I have to call him and leave a message and wait for him to call me back....and it goes on and on and on and on.
This same student recently introduced me to the wonderful concept of the Hillbilly Alarm Clock/Burglar Alarm. All of these people have a mangy assortment of canine/rodent mix companion animals inside, and may have one or more murderous pitbull/rotties outside. When I arrive at this student's house, I am to knock on the door and keep knocking harder and harder until the dogs get barking, then keep up a continuous knocking so they go nuts and run through the house barking at the top of their lungs. This wakes up my student, who gets up, moseys to the bathroom, and much later stumbles through the house to the door, which he eventually opens after peeking through the curtains at least twice. If I hear "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!", a loud thump and a yelp, that's the Hillbilly Snooze Alarm, patent pending, meaning a remote, sneaker or cellphone was thrown at the dogs to shut them up. Then I have to go back to my car for ten minutes and try again.
No. I am not kidding. I know you are sitting there laughing, thinking what a wonderful, imaginative treatise this is. I am dead serious.
On, and if you have a wicked sense of humor, do not try what I did one time. I had a notoriously hard to awaken student, a gang kid from downstate. One day, I pounded on the door hard enough to rattle the windows, and in a deep, loud voice, I bellowed, "Narcotics officers! Open up immediately! We have a warrant to search and seize!" He was NOT amused. I did it again with another kid, not my student, but a friend of one, and I thought HE was going to kill me. I personally think it gets funnier every time I do it. Sheesh! Kids!
Bring a seat cushion of your choice. Something comfortable, because why should EVERY part of your body crawl with revulsion. Well, you remember the table, right? Tables are a bargain compared to the chairs. Wooden chair seats REEK of gases past/passed, having permeated the wood. Any upholstered seat cushion will be just...unthinkable to sit on. (That stain...could it be...??? Yes!!! OMG!!! YUUUUCK!!!). I would sooner EAT off a barstool in Jellies than dream of sitting my ass in one of their chairs. Never, ever it in an upholstered chair or sofa in the living room, even with your seat cushion. There is dampness in addition to the odor, and since it can usually not be identified, just best to play it safe. You are better off on the floor. Like placemats, place a mark of some kind to let you know which side is down, you do not want to get them mixed up as you go from place to place.
As you try to find a seat at the table, if a sperm donor or incubator is there, they will apologize, saying things like, "Oh, I'm sorry, the place is such a mess..."
Mess? MESS??? I've seen messes lady, THIS is like saying Hiroshima got a little warm at the end of WWII! THIS does for messes what Stonehenge did for ROCKS!!! Japan was a bit of a MESS after this year's earthquake and tsunami! No one could EVER find the bodies HERE! Jesus Christ, lady, get a dictionary and look up 'mess' and 'disaster'! Sound out any of the big words in the definition, you'll get the point sooner or later!...'Mess' is THIS place's gay love child!
But I digress...
They will tell you to just move anything you need to and put it anywhere.
Choices, choices.
Where WOULD you put...put...THIS? A Biohazard bag? The toilet? The litter box? A Hazmat Containment Vehicle? They will never clean and jerk their 4 foot wide asses out of the brokespring couch where they sit watching Jerry Springer or the Game Show Network, waddle through the garbage strewn floor five feet and clear a place FOR a guest in their house. This provides a nice homey atmosphere for you, like you're one of the family. You will feel depression and despondency overcome you in moments, half your IQ will drop out a pants leg (oh, another important point, later), and in thirty seconds you will resemble Pigpen from Charlie Brown. Long term exposure may make this effect permanent.
(c) 2011 by Dean Davis of Living World Ecology Center. Reprinted with permission given by Dean Davis.
click here to return to Cedar's Mountain
Get used to using the phone. A lot. None of these home tutored kids will ever call you if they are not going to be there. Ever. You have to call. Every day. Several times. Leaving messages. I have one now that I have to call, leave a message, and if he doesn't call back, I now have to call his Mom, who will call him. Then she'll call me back to let me know she got him up. Then I have to call him and leave a message and wait for him to call me back....and it goes on and on and on and on.
This same student recently introduced me to the wonderful concept of the Hillbilly Alarm Clock/Burglar Alarm. All of these people have a mangy assortment of canine/rodent mix companion animals inside, and may have one or more murderous pitbull/rotties outside. When I arrive at this student's house, I am to knock on the door and keep knocking harder and harder until the dogs get barking, then keep up a continuous knocking so they go nuts and run through the house barking at the top of their lungs. This wakes up my student, who gets up, moseys to the bathroom, and much later stumbles through the house to the door, which he eventually opens after peeking through the curtains at least twice. If I hear "SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!", a loud thump and a yelp, that's the Hillbilly Snooze Alarm, patent pending, meaning a remote, sneaker or cellphone was thrown at the dogs to shut them up. Then I have to go back to my car for ten minutes and try again.
No. I am not kidding. I know you are sitting there laughing, thinking what a wonderful, imaginative treatise this is. I am dead serious.
On, and if you have a wicked sense of humor, do not try what I did one time. I had a notoriously hard to awaken student, a gang kid from downstate. One day, I pounded on the door hard enough to rattle the windows, and in a deep, loud voice, I bellowed, "Narcotics officers! Open up immediately! We have a warrant to search and seize!" He was NOT amused. I did it again with another kid, not my student, but a friend of one, and I thought HE was going to kill me. I personally think it gets funnier every time I do it. Sheesh! Kids!
Bring a seat cushion of your choice. Something comfortable, because why should EVERY part of your body crawl with revulsion. Well, you remember the table, right? Tables are a bargain compared to the chairs. Wooden chair seats REEK of gases past/passed, having permeated the wood. Any upholstered seat cushion will be just...unthinkable to sit on. (That stain...could it be...??? Yes!!! OMG!!! YUUUUCK!!!). I would sooner EAT off a barstool in Jellies than dream of sitting my ass in one of their chairs. Never, ever it in an upholstered chair or sofa in the living room, even with your seat cushion. There is dampness in addition to the odor, and since it can usually not be identified, just best to play it safe. You are better off on the floor. Like placemats, place a mark of some kind to let you know which side is down, you do not want to get them mixed up as you go from place to place.
As you try to find a seat at the table, if a sperm donor or incubator is there, they will apologize, saying things like, "Oh, I'm sorry, the place is such a mess..."
Mess? MESS??? I've seen messes lady, THIS is like saying Hiroshima got a little warm at the end of WWII! THIS does for messes what Stonehenge did for ROCKS!!! Japan was a bit of a MESS after this year's earthquake and tsunami! No one could EVER find the bodies HERE! Jesus Christ, lady, get a dictionary and look up 'mess' and 'disaster'! Sound out any of the big words in the definition, you'll get the point sooner or later!...'Mess' is THIS place's gay love child!
But I digress...
They will tell you to just move anything you need to and put it anywhere.
Choices, choices.
Where WOULD you put...put...THIS? A Biohazard bag? The toilet? The litter box? A Hazmat Containment Vehicle? They will never clean and jerk their 4 foot wide asses out of the brokespring couch where they sit watching Jerry Springer or the Game Show Network, waddle through the garbage strewn floor five feet and clear a place FOR a guest in their house. This provides a nice homey atmosphere for you, like you're one of the family. You will feel depression and despondency overcome you in moments, half your IQ will drop out a pants leg (oh, another important point, later), and in thirty seconds you will resemble Pigpen from Charlie Brown. Long term exposure may make this effect permanent.
(c) 2011 by Dean Davis of Living World Ecology Center. Reprinted with permission given by Dean Davis.
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