The Visitor - Oddities, Grims, & Bangles...Oh, My!

Pin It

I was in the midst of teaching my fifth grade class about the proper way of going about presenting literature responses when the visitor arrived, pushing her way through the classroom door, amid a spangled array of baubles and bangles. She stood for a moment, blinking from behind her thick spectacles and wild tangles of disarrayed hair.

I at first assumed that she was a parent who’d come in for her child’s birthday and the student had failed to inform me of this paltry little detail, so I stepped aside and allowed her the opportunity to present the class with her child’s treats; however, it didn’t take me long to realize that this was not the case whatsoever.

The visitor soon began to utter with ethereal-like tones as she beckoned the students toward the floor in front of her, and commenced to make predictions of the future, mutter incantations, and gabble on and on about something called a grim as she gazed at the ‘portents’ of the leftover dregs of her afternoon coffee break.

The class decided that it was best to humor her; they were polite, answered her questions, and were even willing to nod in agreement at some of her pronouncements of being late and other forecasts that nobody could ever know about occurring.

I snapped a photo or two of this crazy lady to send down to the principal in the event that she were an escaped lunatic or something from the local nut factory. I can only assume so, and I was glad that none of my students were harmed as she whipped her shawls about her and made a dramatic exit out the door, muttering time and time again that my class needed to protect me that crazy grim-thing…

Heavens, I can only wonder why my classroom seems to be a magnet for these types; after all, this isn’t the first time that an occurrence like this has taken place. Why only last year there was some gal by the name of Stargirl who wandered into my classroom, and the year before we were exposed to a truly horrific woman by the name of Spiker. Perhaps even more odd was my first year at this new school when we met a woman I'll simply call Donna because the name she went by was far too long to try to write.

I have only one thing to conclude…my classroom is most certainly becoming flypaper for freaks.

Now I just wish I could get rid of this big, mangy dog that keeps following me everywhere I go…I think it’s a stray.