No Piece of Cake

This was going to be a piece of cake. It sounded like a perfect way to get my feet wet in the waters of teacher-substitution. It was a Friday and the page on the website said that I didn't need to show up until ten o'clock for a third grade class. I thought this was a good age group for me because they were still naive enough to think I knew what I was doing and too small to walk all over me. I was trying to avoid being traumatized and parlay this into a job teaching abroad. "You better be careful, a broad might end up teaching you." my grandfather later told me.          "Surely the teacher won't be giving these kids much work on a Friday. She'll be able to introduce me to the class which should earn me a little more respect than if I showed up out of the blue one day. This should be pretty laid back," I thought to myself. I called in, requested the job, and got it. I put on my hipster-business-casual attire, got directions to the school, and was on my way.
         It was an even smaller rural town about forty-five minutes away from the college town that I lived in. So I took the back-roads from the armpit of Tennessee to it's butthole. I show up at the principal's office with an air of confidence that I never thought I would have in that atmosphere. I wasn't exactly a model-student in my formative years. I got kicked out of three schools, and one of them twice. He directed me to the class and things started out exactly like I thought they would. The teacher introduced me to the class and told them to be on their best behavior. Aside from a few "you look too young to be a substitute teacher," and "my brother is almost as old as you," comments the class was pretty respectful. I was a seventeen-year-old-looking, twenty-seven-year-old, college student trying to earn a few extra bucks, a very few. After taking a mental note of the quick-witted students and their backpacks, so that later I knew where to plant the cigarettes, I got to work.
         It was an easy gig I just passed out some worksheets kicked my legs up on my temporary foot-rest, picked up the teacher's manual, and got to daydreaming. We went over those, then took care of the rest of the requirements. Once the kids detected weakness from me, they became progressively rowdier throughout the day. They were on to me, I was just a flash in the popular pan, my respectability as a substitute teacher was deteriorating like a tater tot on the playground. Annoyed by the noise, the teacher next door came by a few times and told the kids to calm down. About the time the kids were actually starting to get to me the announcement came. "The assembly will be held in the gym for the third through fifth grade class. Grades three through five prepare for the assembly at two o'clock." the anonymous voice announced over the intercom. "Thank god. This should calm these little skamps down."
         They called for the students to go to the gym, staggering each grade. We were one of the last ones in the gym, despite being the first ones called on. The line I had them form looked much more disorderly than the other classes. After some crooked eyes and sympathetic glances we got settled into a section of the bleachers.
         This particular day's entertainment was some PBS reject who sang songs that were supposed to teach the kids lessons. I remember a line to one of the hooks went something to the effect of "9-1-1, If someone has a gun, dial 9-1-1, If you don't, the criminal has won," or something like that. This song made me want to run. I hated this guy a ton. But nevertheless he kept singing. For his encore he started bringing teacher's out from the audience. I don't know if they volunteered or were coaxed onto the makeshift stage but his reluctant background dance team seemed to be growing. Once I realized that he was pulling these poor shmoes out of the audience I quickly opened up a folder I had and tried to hide behind it. I thought I was in the clear in a deep daydream somewhere in Brazil when I see all of these tiny little hands in my peripheral vision waving and pointing hysterically. As my stomach is turning I look up to see exactly what I dreaded, yet somehow knew was coming. This ridiculous looking man, apparently not satisfied with just humiliating himself, had to bring other unwilling teachers, who probably did not have this in their lesson plans, down to endure the ridicule that he has probably been going through since he was these student's age, practically pulls me down to the gauntlet. He starts out our torture by trying to choreograph some absurd dance step and then parades us around the perimeter so that no student misses the all-left-feet dance troupe. Just as I begin to rank this among the top most humiliating experiences of my life I realize that it has only just begun.
         This crazed moral-musician commences to passing out this array of inflatable instruments and telling each teacher who they should mimic, I guess to demonstrate his musical knowledge to the only people who would listen. He would give one of the ladies, because it was nothing but ladies, and me and d-bag, a saxophone and say "You're Kenny G," and she would mime playing the saxophone the way she assumed Kenny G would. This went for what seemed like awhile until he got to me. I guess he saw the star-quality in my eyes because he saved me the guitar and tells me "You're Eric Clapton." I didn't want to let my small fan base down so, not to toot my own inflatable horn but, I rocked out pretty ferociously with that thing, and I believe the applause got noticeably louder. He juiced this little routine for a little longer and then got to the coup-de-grace.
         This man, who did not know when to say when, reached into his douche-bag-of-tricks which seemed to be getting deeper and deeper again and began pulling out masks and different headwear. He pulled out a monkey mask and put it on one of the teachers. "You're Curious George," he would say and the kids would cheer and laugh at the chance to humiliate their teachers. That's not too bad I thought to myself atleast I will get to hide my face. I was wrong. He got to me and pulls out this neon yellow woman's wig and says as loud as he can "You're ... Barbie," and the peanut gallery roars with laughter. Now not only is my face not hidden it is most definetely bright-red and it has a cheap neon woman's costume wig on it. I couldn't let this stand in the way of my performance. I step up and start banging my head and rock that inflatable guitar out like it was the last solo of my career. Turns out, it was. The audience goes wild and starts chanting my name, as they knew it, BARBIE!! BARBIE!! BARBIE!! "Thank you Christiana." I yelled. Curtains.
         Needless to say I got know respect from my class for the rest of that day. "Hey sit down until they call your bus," I would respectfully say to one of my students. "Oh shut up Barbie." they would retort.
         The birthday boy reminded me about his birthday treat that he brought. I could use that piece of cake right about now. The little skamp went to his cubby and fetched a large blue-topped tupperware with "Tommy" sharpied on a piece of masking-tape that stretched across the entire top, so as not to get confused with any of the other tupperware containers that the other kids brought. He brought it up to my temporary desk and my bitterness quickly faded away. An overwhelming sense of happiness washed over me like a warm morning shower as I imagined what kind of cake it was going to be. Cheesecake, no way. Carrot Cake possibly. Maybe it was going to be some new kind of cake that I had never seen, or tasted, or even heard of before like Butter-
Wine, cake before I heard of it. I kinda hoped it wasn't a regular chocolate cake. Not that I don't like chocolate, I just wasn't in the mood for it for some reason. German chocolate I could do. At this point I realized that I was smiling from ear to ear as everyone was gathering around and the top was opening about to reveal it's wondrous contents.I leaned in as a drop of drool cascaded onto the kid next to me. There was no piece of cake. It was brownies. Chocolate brownies. I was so disappointed I only ate two.