I remember sixth grade. Lord almighty, that was a horrible year. It was that awkward transition between girlhood and womanhood, when girls become catty and boys are just starting to notice which girls are worth looking at.
But the worst part, I think, was that my mom was the playground aid, and she was in pretty tight with my sixth grade teacher who ignorantly believed that my mother was a saint, which also meant that she believed all of the horrible stories my mother told her about me. Even though half of them were probably true, it didn't make it any easier being her student. She was the teacher who constantly told me how lucky I was to have a mom like mine (though she wasn't there when my mom threatened suicide or when she beat me senseless), that my mom was an amazing woman (though she wasn't there when my mother overdosed and I had to spend the night in the emergency room scared to death that she would die and that it was my fault), and that, if I knew what was good for me, I'd thank God for my mom (because I'm sure she was there when my mom told everyone in the smoky teacher's lounge what a horrible spoiled brat I was, when what she really meant was that she hated my dad and felt stuck in a no-win situation. I was the scapegoat).
Mrs. Dietz was the teacher who yanked me into the hallway after Mark Williams broke my scissors. She told me that I needed to step back and look at my life, that my problems were my fault and that the more quickly I realized that, the more quickly things would become easier for me. And then she issued me the only swat I ever got in school, but not until she summoned Miss Jones, the sterotypically masculine gym teacher, to do the dirty work, and then she went down the hall and closed each of the other classroom doors.
SA-WACK!
It was absolutely humiliating.
I'm thinking about that swat and about Mrs. Dietz today because of this terrible cough I'm battling.
For some inexplicable reason (coulda been my mother's chain-smoking, but who knows?), I used to get a hacking cough every school year--the kind of cough caused by sinus drainage, the kind that always became far worse at night. This, I remember, was one time when my mother was very mothering; she would mix a batch of lemon juice and honey and have me drink it down. It always worked, and I believe in it to this day. That's one of the strange things about having a mom who was diagnosed with manic depression; the memories about her are both fond and fierce, and I remember the good and the bad with equal vividness.
But while Mrs. Dietz wasn't around to witness my mother's Mr. Hyde side, neither was my mother in my classroom to administer her magic potion when my tickle got the worst of me. She sent me to school, doubtless because she didn't want to call off work, and I sat in my classroom asking to get a drink every few minutes, embarrassed by this cough that had taken over my body. My mom, I'm sure, was outside aiding other kids on the playground.
I don't remember what I had done wrong in class that day, but I do remember that I got into trouble with Mrs. Dietz somehow. Looking back on it now, I really wonder what this woman had against me, what horrible stories my mother told her, and how many of them were even true. In most of my classes prior to and after my sixth grade year, I was most often the teacher's pet. I made good grades (until seventh grade, then it all seemed pointless. I got back on track during my Junior year), paid attention, and I really didn't cause trouble, other than by the occasional fit of chattiness (who, me?).
But in Mrs. Dietz's class, all I had to do was clear my throat, and she was on me like chalk on a chalkboard.
So, apparently I cleared my throat on the day this killer sinus-drainage cough attacked, and I was stuck in the corner desk, ordered to put my head down and was told that I was not allowed to leave my seat for any reason, and I was not to raise my head.
Humiliation.
I sat at the desk with my head down, knowing that all eyes were upon me--the eyes of my best friend Dawn, and of the cool girls, Michelle and Tina, and of Mark Williams, who I loved and hated at the same time. And I tried, desperately I tried, to control that tickling cough that had taken me hostage.
Of course it didn't work. The harder I tried to keep from coughing, to fight that tickle, the more violently the cough came once it finally triumphed. And the fact that I had to sit there with my head down was sheer torture. The position allowed my nasal drip to travel down my nose, exit my nostrils, and slide to the tip of my nose until-drip, drip, drip--it was gathering in a pool on my desktop. I was scared to death to ask for a tissue, and I was embarrassed to tears to wipe the snot away with my arm; even if I had, the sheer volume of snot would never have been controlled by a little backhand wipe. And so I sat there, terrified that Mrs. Dietz would send me back to my seat, the string of mucus conspicuously connecting the tip of my nose to that disgusting puddle on my desk, and wishing desperately that some mercy would befall me.
Like most of my childhood traumatic memories, this one doesn't provide an ending for me. I don't remember how I got out of that situation, so it was either so uneventful that it doesn't register or it was so painful that I've blocked it from memory.
I just remember that terrible tickle and that incessant drip...drip...drip.
My family is currently dealing with that tickle and drip. My husband, the only one in the household currently unafflicted, says that our house sounds like one long echoing cough all night long. I've doled out the lemon juice and honey, the herbal cough syrup, the homeopathics and the eucalyptus chest rub. I've even gotten so desperate as to break out the Nyquil...AND give more than the recommended dosage when the recommended dosage didn't cut it.
We missed a long-anticipated visit from my brother-in-law and his wife and new baby daughter because of this cough, and we forfeited both of our homeschool support group meetings, piano lessons (would have been Sweetheart's first lesson), music appreciation class and bucket-making class. We also skipped a trip to the local festival's wooly-worm race and the old time fiddlin' today. We may have to forgo tomorrow's long-anticipated barn dance and Sunday's Harvest Dance, the first our "big town" has ever had.
But at least my kids don't have to sit in a tyrant's classroom while their noses drip onto a germ-infested wooden desk in the corner of the room. That's one of the great things about being a stay-at-home mom--I get to stay at home, especially when I'm needed. Plus, we cut out schooling for the week--that's one of the great things about homeschooling--and my kids still did some of their lessons, even though I told them they didn't have to. We've been cuddling up on the couch, watching Cosby Show DVDs and living on fresh bread, Ramen noodles and Nyquil.
It stinks to be sick, but at least we're all in this together, in the relative comfort of our own home.
A word of advice: start the elderberry/echinacea NOW. This thing's nasty as all get-out.
I'm off to dole out the Nyquil. I might have to go to the fruit cellar and open a new case.
