65 - Garbage goblin.
joneworlds@mailbox.org

I was with my grade one class the other day. We're
all outside,  and I'm trying to  repair the fences
around the school yard.  Some of these little kids
are bolters,  and they'll run right  through those
broken  chain-link fences  and  book  it into  the
street. It's no  good. And so I find  this roll of
chicken  wire   in  a  storage  shed,   and  we're
measuring  out pieces  of it,  counting out  cable
ties,   stuff   like    that.   That's   counting,
arithmetic, it's learning, right?

But it's  pretty nerve-wracking trying to  keep an
eye on  everyone and  also do  that job.  And then
some goblin  sneaks in and  grabs my snips  when I
put them down. I got to chase it all over the yard
until I finally  trap it under a garbage  can so I
can get them back. Which  the kids think is pretty
funny stuff and get all worked up. Garbage goblin,
garbage goblin.  And so of course  one kid escapes
through the  hole in the  fence I didn't  get done
fixing, and  good thing that passing  car did some
hard braking  there. See,  that's what  I'm afraid
of.  I must  have accidentally  cussed a  bit when
that  happened, so  of course  the kids  spend the
rest  of  the  day  saying  that  word  a  million
times.  Teaching is  a pretty  hard job  you know,
especially when you're on your own. And I remember
back when there  used to be aides  and whatever in
schools,  to help  the spectrum  kids cope.  But I
guess that's  not a  thing around these  parts any
more.