Field Trips, Farting and Dancing Queens
We had our first field trip and I had a little bit of trepidation of how the boys would act when I considered how the kids in the public school acted on field trips. As good as I am at being a fascist I don�t really like it that well.
I have a built in bribe system where I let them play their Nintendo Game Boy on Friday afternoon if they get 100 on their spelling pretest, have done all their homework and were able to do their memory work on Wednesday instead of Friday. Their memory work is memorizing two of the Ten Commandments, with Luther�s explanations. I�m using the, �They will be ready to handle Fiala or Ashby� method. I�ve failed in this endeavor thus far.
So, they have the privilege of playing their game boys on the bus during field trip and on the way home if they if they�re good. This works. Everyone behaves before the field trip but on the field trip, Lives of Colonial Children in Connecticut, they learned about how colonial children lived and the chores they did.
One of the things that Colonial Children did was, �fart wool,� and the tour guide, whom I now regard as an idiot beyond measure, asked my class, �would anyone like to fart?� and she got no answers and �farting wool� is a difficult task so she asked, �Would anyone like to help me fart?�
I had my six boys, my girl and a third grade boy who joined our group for the day and they all looked up at me, their tiny faces a mixture of burgeoning horror and laughter as if to say, �Can we laugh at her? If we do, are you going to kill us?�
We were at impasse, my kids were looking me and the violently retarded tour guide was as well. I hate it when the ball is in my court. I walked to the front, and said, �I�ll help you,� and thus I helped this moron fart. I was looking over my glasses at the kids the whole time and they were good about it, but the dam was about to burst.
The Lord works in mysterious ways and before our tenuous decorum came crashing down upon us a chubby third grade girl got out of her seat, started dancing and singing Abba�s �Dancing Queen.� It was one of the most ungraceful things I�ve ever seen in my whole life. My kids lost it, I lost it and the tour guide looked at me sardonically and said, �some example.� I had half a mind to be set a really bad example but I looked at her, held my tongue and said, �Allen why don�t you help this woman fart?� Allen is my favorite, he�ll do what I tell him, that and since he�s the most popular kid in school the rest of boys and the girl lined up to fart the wool.
I�ve learned there are synonyms for farting wool and considering that the homonym of fart more commonly used in the lexicon being a potentially explosive I would have chosen another word.
Please, keep in mind:
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, digging the dancing queen
But, please don�t ask my kids to fart.
This entry is dedicated to acelix who dances like no other white boy.
