Toothpaste Trousers

Evidently, when you’re too tired while brushing your teeth, sometimes you can miss your mouth entirely. When this happens, you brush the outside of your cheek instead of your teeth and clip your ear while sideswiping your hair that gets all entwined in the bristles of your toothbrush AND globbed with toothpaste. The toothbrush then flings out of your hand and falls to the floor. Ugh! I checked the front of my sweater to see if I slopped toothpaste down the front and I had not so “hip-hip-hooray” for me that I didn’t have to go back and change into another shirt! I picked up my toothbrush and rinsed it off and then grabbed my new favorite flavor of coffee in my cup (Vermont Country Blend laced with Italian Sweet Cream Creamer) and put my lunch in my lunchbag and away I went sashaying out the back door to get to my early morning duty post on time.

As I enter the gymnasium at 7:17 am I begin to visit with several students as I take a swirl around the gym as my other morning duty mates arrive. I wanted to congratulate Lizzy and Lacie (not their real names) on a job well done at the 3^rd Annual Dance Showcase that was held at the Bicknell Center at PSU the night before. I didn’t get to see the girls afterwards, but they knew I was going to be there because I had told them Monday morning that I would be there that night and I was bringing my mom with me. My daughter-in-law, Makaihlah, is Lizzy’s teacher so it was very exciting to see the songs that Makaihlah choreographed and her dancers put the moves to them. I continued on around the gym and had conversations with Brown and Abbott and several other kids along the way back up to my post. Remember, all these kids are sitting on the floor as I’m walking around checking on groups of students and having a conversation with another about her cool earrings and talking about a book to an avid reader. I mean, I am “knee deep” in students. The bell rings and it is time for breakfast and I begin excusing students to class and to the breakfast line. As the line comes to an end I pick up my bags and head down to the library. I get my computer up and going and put out a few fires and visit with Jami about her evening and mine and worked right in to the lunch period. As I sat down and crossed my legs, I noticed something was splattered all over my pant leg. Not just one pant leg, but BOTH pant legs. Oh my gosh, what was this yuck that was on my “trousers”? I wondered if I had stepped in a mud puddle and sloshed dirty water up on my pants and knew I had not and sat there and really racked my brain as to what this was all over my pants. I tried brushing it off and scraping at it with my fingernail, but it was not wanting to lift off my pants very easily. After a closer inspection and thinking back to the morning, I realized that when my toothbrush flung out of my hand and hit the floor, it splattered all over the legs of my “trousers”. HOW EMBARRASSING!!! I wore these toothpaste trousers all through morning duty, all down the hallways, through the library and computer labs, to the lounge, to the office, to the Papa John’s Pizza Day in the lunchroom and sported the toothpaste splatter for half a day. Why did no one say anything? How could no one notice? This splatter sticks out like a sore thumb, ya know?! Maybe everyone thought it was just a cool pair of trousers?! Huh?! Are we in agreement?! Will everyone come to school tomorrow with toothpaste splattered on their trousers? Am I a trendsetter? A fad starter? Will I be in the “Fashion of 2018” flashbacks?! I doubt it...it’s like going around smiling with broccoli in your teeth and nobody telling you. Toothpaste trousers are out folks...and so am I!