An Open Letter

To the gentleman who works behind the counter at our local FedEx/Kinko's:

While I do not normally send missives to strangers out into cyberspace, I feel like you may have unfairly judged me this evening, and I wanted to address what may have seemed to you like some strange behavior out of context. I believe it is not right to judge a person without complete information, and while I am not sure whether I learned this lesson from the Bible or Law & Order, I still think it holds. Plus, I just feel embarrassingly high-maintenance now and need to set the record straight.

Things you should take into account before you judge me:

1) Last week, one of my roommates got engaged. This week, one of my other roommates has been having an incredibly stressful week at school and needed help planning her lessons. In combination, this means that my evenings at home have been spent becoming the world's greatest expert on both the African National Congress and wedding reception locations in the greater D.C. Metropolitan area. In other words, I have had an enormous amount of details floating around in my head, and, in the midst of these, I may have forgotten details about basic etiquette.

2) This time last year, I was a week into my unit on The Odyssey when I realized that the text I was teaching and calling The Odyssey to my students was, in fact, The Iliad. This marked a low point in my career. There were, however, worksheets, plans, and notes that might have been salvageable, but it appears that I destroyed all record of them in a moment of deep shame. Either that or I didn't come to school at all for a week, and I have no recollection of it. I tell you this back story to explain that this week this year, I have been in the unfortunate position of believing I had materials to teach...and discovering that, in fact, I do not, and that I need to make them from scratch. At 7 p.m. the night before I need to teach them.

3) Yesterday, I assigned 5 detentions; forgot 3 promises I made to students; planned and scrapped 2 different lessons; ate 1 entire Domino's pizza by myself while working late; and sent a student to the principal's office from suspension (effectively suspending them from suspension -- which, now that I think of it, sounds like a good thing, but is not).

4) Last night, at approximately 7:30 pm, both of the copy machines at school broke down. This was after the previously-named events, but, unfortunately, before I went home. As of this year, we have established "copier norms," which include the fact that if you see it break, you are responsible to fix it. Since I had just chased down the only other remaining teacher in the building on his way out the door to learn how to turn on the alarm (which I have now set off a grand total of 4 times in my teaching career...which is approximately 4 times more than everyone else), I knew that I was probably not going to be able to pretend that I was not the last one to see the copier break. So I had to fix it. I am not sure what I did, but somehow, the copier was working by this morning -- after 30 minutes of what felt like open-heart surgery.

5) When the copy machine technician came in today to fix the copy machines, he broke them. While this was relatively disastrous for the teaching staff, it made me feel relatively proud of accomplishment #4, which is why...

6) ...when I was making my copies at your store (because of reason #5), I felt like I was qualified to take apart your copier and fix the jam. In retrospect, I recognize that I should have come to you first, and I recognize that reciting my resume of copy-fixing experience when you came over to help was probably not sufficient to convince you that I knew what I was doing. Particularly given that, after you fixed the jam, I broke the copy machine again. 10 seconds later.

7) What you really don't understand, however, is that double-sided, collated, 3-hole-punched, stapled-in-the-left-corner-but-not-the-right, please, copies really truly are the key to solving the achievement gap.

8) I had already consumed 4 Diet Cokes by the time you saw me...which, now that I think of it, is probably the best explanation for #s 6 and 7, as well as this blog post at 10:36 pm on a school night.

Please accept my apology, as well as the insane amount of money you charged me for a few measly copies (and, possibly, the pleasure of dealing with me. And the broken copy machine.)

Sincerely,
the girl who jammed the copier at FedEx/Kinko's 5 times tonight

P.S. I actually jammed it a 6th time, but just turned it off because I didn't want to bother you. Hopefully you'll discover that in the morning.