Fear Mongers

I am so thrilled to share this wonderful story with you. A friend of mine wrote this and gave me permission to share it. Her name is Karen, and she was one of the good guys in one of my camping tales. Karen is a professional artist and a substitute teacher, working with special needs kids. This story made me smile right out loud.

Donna

Friday, May 08, 2009
Fear Mongers

I went into a class yesterday morning to pull out a couple of special needs kids; the class is Hispanic, but all the kids speak English very well. These are some of the kids that I adore. I subbed for that teacher for a week and brought home all kinds of handmade and hand-picked flowers, rocks, and paper dolls, given as gifts to me. That'll rock your world. These are some of the kids that mob-hug me. I was subbing in PE and 12 of them rushed me. Thank God they were all around me or they'd have taken me down! About 600 pounds of kid smacking into me yelling, "Ms. D!!!" I love it, of course.

Anyway, as I was in the class about 4 of them ran up to hug me, and the teacher pulled me aside and told me that the folks that run a not-to-be named organization from the local hotel behemoth come into the classrooms to conduct little seminars for the kids. She said they asked the teacher if, before they came, she could tell the kids not to hug them. You know...Hispanic kids, swine flu, etc. The teacher said, "How was I supposed to tell these kids not to hug? What should I say?" I asked, "What DID you do?" She laughed and said she gathered the kids around and told them, "Class, the nice ladies that come to school today are from a hotel. Sometimes, since there are all kinds of people from all over in hotels, they could be carrying certain viruses or 'bugs.' I don't want you to get sick, so when they come, it's probably better not to hug them!" She said the kids all got wide-eyed and said, "OK!"

HA HA!! When the ladies came, the kids sat at their seats and waved sweetly. When they left, they waved sweetly good-bye. And the "ladies" never knew that THEY were the verboten ones!

Karen


Note: You're smiling, too, aren't you? I know we have to be careful when it comes to swine flu, but it feels good to know the "Innocents" were not damaged by our fears.

Donna