A Day of Red-i-ness

The fact that atmospheric conditions inside my classroom hovered around the mid-60s all day yesterday meant that I had made two good decisions: wearing two red coats—one as outerwear and the other, a red leather number, initially for fashion—and bringing along a little jar of goodness I received as a gift from one of my students.

When school closed for break, I took the gift home, but upon examining its contents—hot cocoa, tea bags, lotion, and chocolate—determined that it was the perfect assortment of essential supplies to keep at my desk to provide a boost when winter takes its toll at the workplace. At least, all but the palm-sized mirror I found this morning when rooting for a bag of green tea.

“Hmmm…” I thought, sliding the mirror into my purse to take back home, unable to imagine why I’d need a mirror at my desk.

A couple classes later, I went into my storage closet/workroom with the intention of squirting single dabs of red, white, and black paint from the handy pump-equipped containers on my paint shelves onto a foam tray, in preparation for a little demonstration I planned for the second graders who were due to arrive any minute

The white and black paints—easily accessed from my chest-level “neutral” shelf-- flowed easily from their respective pumps into little dollops on my tray. I then reached slightly above my head for a squirt from the red paint container that I was too lazy to pull down from the shelf. Evidently, there was a little clog in the line, because a sudden shower of red paint shot across my entire face, miraculously missing the fashionable red jacket in its entirety.

Fortunately, I have a sink and those brown real paper paper towels in my storage closet/workroom. And a little palm sized mirror that that this art teacher will always keep at the ready, with the essential supplies.