We are all on a diet…

So said the table of seven, that was a part of a party of 40 high school kids that I waited on tonight.

The largest girl at the table might have been a size 8.  None of them were close to being over weight.

What they were, though, was annoying.

I’ve probably told you before that we can get school groups in and out in about an hour.  This group was scheduled at 5:00.  They arrived at 5:15.

And I approached the first table and was met with:

What can I get you guys to drink?

“What do you have”

I tell them.

“Can you say that again?  Slower”

I do.

“I’m not sure.  What are you having Heather?”

“I don’t know?  What are you having Courtney?

“I don’t know…”

Finally I get them to tell me their drinks.

What would you like to eat?

“We haven’t looked yet?”

These are you choices ________________ .

“Can you give us some time to look and then come back?”

Actually.  I can’t.  These are you choices ___________.

“Okay.  I’ll take the bacon cheeseburger.  But I don’t want the bacon.  Or the cheese.  Or the bun.  Or the french fries.  What can I get instead of the french fries?

You can have a salad.

“But I don’t want a salad.  What else can we get besides french fries or salad?”

You can have broccoli.

“Okay.  I’ll take broccoli.  And you got the order right?  Bacon cheeseburger, no bacon, no cheese, no bun, no french fries, with broccoli.

Yes.  I got it.

And then I went on to the next person.  There were seven of them  Each order as complicated as the next.  There were other tables of their friends that were already getting their food and I still hadn’t put their order into the computer.

And when I finally had all of their orders and I was about to walk away from the table to wait on the other three tables of their friends, one of them says:

“Oh.  And we’ll have water for the table.”

Ugh.

PS.  They all DID manage to scarf down the chocolate chip cookies I brought them for dessert.  Of course they might be throwing up in the bathroom as I type this but that’s a different story.

 

A close call….l

This week at work we’ve had cops in the restaurant all day.  Seems there is a huge increase in the number of purse/bag thefts in Times Square and management being on top of things has hired a cop to hang out in the lobby and scare people away.  I think it’s been working.  More importantly all week they’ve been cute.  And when choosing a cop, seems to me the most important thing is their being cute.  I also wonder if anyone told these people when they signed up to be cops that they’d spend their days standing around watching other people eat.

I also waited on cute fireman tonight.  That was nice too.

I digress.

So at the end of the night there are suddenly a lot of cops gathered around table 307 which is right next to the wait station.

Turns out.

There was a six top sitting there.  They tried to dine and dash but they caught one of the guys.  So they told him that if he didn’t pay the bill he’d be arrested.  To which he replied he had no money.  There was about a thirty minute discussion where he explained that he’d pay for his share.  They said no.  That if they let him go upstairs and call his friends they’d come back and pay.  They said no.

Finally he pulled out his credit card.

Which was promptly declined.

So they were back to square one.

I was doing side work during all of this so I wasn’t following along precisely.  I do know that as I walked by the big cop starts getting tough and says, “you have about thirty seconds to figure something out or we are cuffing you and taking you downtown.

I’m not sure how they got there, but he eventually had the manager call his parents and they gave their credit card number over the phone.

It was a very close call I’d say.

I also think he should get better friends.

Dining Out 101

Many of these you’ve heard before.  But after tonight.  They bear repeating.

1.  IF you know you like extra lemon in your ice tea.  Then ask for the extra lemon when you order the fucking glass of tea.

2.  IF you know that you can’t use half and half in your fucking coffee and only use “real” milk (sorry we are out of soy) then ask for the fucking milk when you order the coffee.  It will save me two fucking trips to the kitchen.

3. Just because you want a glass of water, does NOT mean that everyone else at the table wants a glass of water.  No one should ever hear “we’ll have water for the table.”  Don’t speak for the other seven people seated at your table.  Because I’d be willing to bet they don’t all want water.

4.  Just because I have an apron and a name tag (do I really still have a name tag at 46?) does NOT mean that I am your waiter.  I have 20 guests in my own station to take care of.  You can wait 45 seconds to get that fucking refill of Diet Pepsi.  It’s probably your third already.

5.  Do NOT sit at a dirty table and immediately start to bitch that it’s NOT clean.  I know it’s not clean.  It’s not clean because 45 seconds ago there was someone else sitting there.  If you want a clean table then put your name on the 90 minute wait in the lobby and someone will surely seat you at a fucking clean table when your name is called.

6.  If you are someone famous, say a like an ABC news correspondent, who happens to sit at my table and then gets a fucking discount because the ever stupid Connie’s sister works with you…you should tip on the pre-discounted amount.  She saved you fifty fucking dollars.  Throw some of that my way.  PS.  I think your prime time show is stupid.

7.  Do NOT bring a party of 60 people to a restaurant…without a reservation.  And do NOT bring 60 people to a restaurant when only three of them are eating.  (Tonight a party of 60 showed up around 11:00.  The managers scurried to get waiters that were finishing up to stay and take care of them.  Most of them didn’t eat.  The ones that did shared french fries and nachos.  In the end I don’t think anyone made more than 20 extra dollars for staying.  They were pissed.)

8.  Do NOT get indignant because I thought you said Diet Pepsi.  It’s just a fucking soft drink.  It will take 32 seconds to get you a new one.

9.  You only have to tell me once that you want separate checks.  I heard you the first fucking time.  I also heard you the second, third, and fourth fucking times.  I’m not stupid.  I speak English.  You are speaking English.  Chill out.  I promise that you won’t have to pay one nickel more than you are supposed to.

10.  Do you really want your 32 cents change from your bill.  I’ll be happy to get it for you.  But it’s going to take some time, since NO ONE on the staff carries coin change.  So sit the fuck down and be patient.

11.  There are 9 of you.  Do NOT hand me your payments one at a time.  I don’t have the time or the patience to make 9 trips back and forth to the computer.  And DO NOT get pissy when I don’t run over to get the last two checks, because I’m waiting on other people.  You should have paid your tab when everyone else paid theirs.

12.  Do NOT ask for two “cokes” and four empty cups.  (This happened tonight.)  You can share all you want.  But you are going to do it from the same cup.  And no you don’t get free refills.  I’ll be happy to bring you refills but I’ll charge you for all of them.

13.  PS.  Girls from number 12.  There are six of you at the table.  We are on an hour wait.  It’s not cool to share one fucking club sandwich and two “cokes.”

14.  I know you asked for a “coke.”  I also only have two hands.  And can only carry five drinks without a tray.  (I hate trays).  So someone had to wait a little longer for their drinks.  Unfortunately it was you.  I’m sure you’ll manage just fine for 30 more seconds.

In better news:  thanks to the first big table that I had tonight that tipped me an extra 20 bucks.  And to the high school students that left me an extra ten.  And to the very obnoxious table that got upset that I forgot to bring you your beer.  Thank you very much for that 25 dollar tip.  I know you meant for it to be 10.  But perhaps you shouldn’t have had that beer after all, because you “math” didn’t make sense and as I’ve discussed before, I have to close the check out as you sign it.  Whoops.

To. The. Point.

Hi.

It’s me.

Again.

I’m tired.

I had a long night at work.

I waited tables.

And

trained.

A girl.

Named.

Dialysis.

I’m not kidding.

No.

Really.

That’s her name.

She made me want to punch her.

But alas.

I could not.

And.

Now.

She’s a server.

She’s going to be awful.

What can you do?

 

I spent the weekend…

depressed.

It was one of those.

Debilitating.

Depressions.

I wanted to curl up in bed.

And.

Die.

Well not really

Die.

I might be.

Exaggerating for

Effect.

But I was pretty

Depressed.

Adam never knows.

What to do.

With me.

When I’m like that.

Luckily.

It doesn’t happen.

Often.

Thank the baby.

jesus.

I was fine.

By the time.

We got home.

Saturday evening.

We are going.

To.

Maine.

This weekend.

We can’t afford to go.

But.

It’s another show.

And.

Adam.

Is going to be.

In.

This one.

He has a guest.

Spot.

Eating a…

twinkie.

I kid you.

Not.

We were invited.

To attend a

Five course.

Meal.

On.

Sunday.

That featured…

pickles.

and.

sausage.

I.

Kid.

You.

Not.

We said no.

Well.

I said no.

Adam made me.

write the

email.

Adam.

gave me a

christmas gift.

That didn’t work.

When I opened it.

The replacement is…

coming tomorrow.

I can’t wait.

I’ll take…

a…

photo…

and show…

you…

when it’s installed.

It’s fun to write like this.  But it’s time to say good night.

See you all tomorrow.

PS.

We have a house guest…

arriving…

tomorrow…

I don’t want him here.

There.

I

said

it.

 

Monday night…

I’m tired.  Adam and I went to see Kathy Griffin tonight.  It’s her one woman Broadway show.

First.

If your friend has to explain all the jokes to you, then you should probably get your head out of your butt and become more familiar with politics and pop culture.  You should also not say “huh” every time she tries to explain it, and you really should NOT sit behind me.  You were annoying as fuck.

As for the show.  It was an hour and 45 minutes too long.  The show ran two hours.

Kathy’s funny.

But you were never quite sure what was off the cuff.  What was planned.  What she was thinking.  Which is all fine except that she kept getting off subject.  You’d find yourself anxious to hear her story about Michelle Bachmann only to have her go off on a story about Whitney Houston.  She managed to come back to the story 99% of the time.  But it made for a lot of effort.  I am not also sure that we heard a lot of new stories.  I will give her this, she can make just about anything funny.  And she likes the word “fuck” a lot.

It also didn’t help that I was tired.  I slept like a rock last night…until 4:00 a.m.  At which point I was startled awake and five hours later I was still trying to go back to sleep.  I didn’t manage it until after Adam left for work.  Of course around 10:00 Harper decided that she needed to be petted whether I liked it or not.  So she comes and stands with her nose three inches from your and paws the comforter until you reward her.  Most of the time if you don’t respond she’ll snuggle up close to you and go to sleep.  Today she did not, she kept pawing and meowing, until I finally woke up enough to play with her.  Finally she got enough and curled herself up next to me and went to sleep.  She was in the same spot when I left to go downtown a few hours later.

So I’m hoping that I can get a regular night’s sleep tonight.

I’ll let you know.

 

I’m beat…

I had the night off tonight.  Thank god.  I don’t think I could have done another late night this week.  I didn’t sleep well again last night and then the jack hammering started around 9:00.  I’ve been hitting a wall since before I got up.

Had an appointment with my accountant today.  It’s not as bad as it could have been.  But it’s still bad.  Ugh.  Luckily he’s going to file my taxes before I pay him so that’s a relief.

My psychiatrist told me today that my relationship with Adam sounded very healthy.  He obviously doesn’t know how controlling Adam really is…  🙂

The only truly annoying thing about tonight is that our work schedule has still not been sent out.  It’s the most ridiculous thing.  I’ve never worked any where that’s so inconsistent about letting it’s employees know when they have to work.  When I started the schedule was posted religiously on Tuesday nights.  It’s been posted as late as Saturday morning recently.  This kind of sucks considering, you know, people like to make plans with their days off.  The like to know if they have good shifts, and approximately how much money they are going to make.

It’s really interesting since the managers get their schedules a month in advance.  I realize that’s unrealistic.  BUT.  I don’t think it’s unrealistic to post it by at least Thursday night.  It makes me angry.  It makes me want to send a snarky reply all email to everyone at work and be pissy about it.  I don’t think I will but it does annoy me.

So now that I’m thoroughly annoyed.  I’m going to bed.

 

Maddog’s Thoughts at 3:51 a.m.

Sometimes I sit down to write and in thirty seconds I have an idea and I’m well on my way to sharing it with you.

And then other nights like tonight I don’t for the life of me know what I should talk about.

Hmmmm.

It might be because I’m tired.  I’ve stayed up too late every night this week and for some unknown reason there is much jack hammering outside my window around 9:00 a.m.  It makes it very hard to sleep.

So…

Things on my mind today:

(I might repeat things I’ve said before but when you have early onset dementia you learn to live with it.)

1.  I’m friends with at least ten of my readers on Facebook.  Most of them no longer comment on my blog.  Which you know is how I get my validation.

2.  Someone should do a study as to why black people can’t taste the alcohol in their drinks.

3.  I personally think that if you want to to taste the alcohol in your drink that you should order scotch on the rocks.  (My friend Suzy had a customer send back a rum and coke tonight because she couldn’t taste the alcohol.)

4.  Of course there is the possibility that you might have a drinking problem if you can no longer taste the alcohol in your drinks.

5.  People who want things for free, don’t tip.

6.  People shouldn’t ask for free stuff anyway.  We run a business.  We make our money by not giving things away.  No you can not have a 20% discount just because.  No you can not have extra ice cream for free.  You want it you pay.

7.  Anyone who spends money to save money is not going to tip.

8.  I have a psychiatrist appointment tomorrow.  I’m not looking forward to it.  He’s going to yell at me because I haven’t lost weight.

9.  He’s also going to yell at me because I still owe him money from my last visit.

10.  I see my accountant tomorrow as well.  He’s going to want money too.  Ugh.

11.  I’m going to Iowa in April.

12.  Doing shows out of town is expensive.  I have to make all the money I need to pay all of my bills for the three weeks that I’m there, plus eating money.  Of course I come back with a paycheck but getting there is tough.  Last time I went I had to pretend I paid my credit card bill.  I also had to pretend that I wasn’t home when they called looking for money.

13.  My schedule at work has been fucked again for the last two weeks.  This week was especially bad.  It was actually worse than the schedules I was getting last fall when I had to complain to Daniel.

14.  When I mentioned this to Daniel this week, he got pissed and said, “I told Michael that I never wanted to hear you complain about your schedule again.

15.  We’ll see how this weeks schedule is.

16.  We may be having house guests next week.  I hope we don’t.  I don’t want to be annoyed all week.

17.  We have to go to Maine again next weekend.  The drag kings are doing another show.  I’m supposed to be helping with it.  Adam is making a guest appearance in it.  I’ll take pictures.

18.  I like going to Maine.  But it’s another expense that I’d rather not have right now.

19.  I sometimes really do think I have early onset dementia.  I forget why I think this.  But seriously I do.

20.  My internet connection just crapped out.  I hope I don’t lose this post.

21.  I just copied and pasted it in to an email, so that I won’t lose the whole thing…which has happened before.

22.  Adam and I are seeing Arcadia on Saturday night.  It’s one of the perks of his job that we get to see shows for free.  I’m looking forward to it.  There is no singing and dancing so he’ll hate it.

23.  I’m reading an awesome book right now.  The Help.  I’m almost finished with it, which makes me sad.  I don’t want it to end.

24.  I need new work shoes.  The sole is coming off my current pair which are three years old.

25.  I stopped to pick up something off the floor today at work, and the gum that I was not supposed to be chewing, flew out of my mouth and went sailing.  Luckily no one saw, except for Suzie.  I had this horrible fear that it was going to land in someone’s hair.

26.  I told a customer today that our fish wasn’t very good.  He ordered it any way.  Why do you ask the waiter’s opinion if you aren’t going to take it?

27.  I’m off tomorrow.  Thank god.  I’m beat.

28.  Anyone out there watching American Idol.  I’m not sure that I’m committed to sticking with it this year.

29.  Adam thinks the contestant Scotty McCreery must have a huge penis, to be as cocky as he is at 17.

30.  I need new Ipod ear phones.  I currently have the ear buds but they won’t stay in my ears so I can’t hear the music.

31.  My secret subscription to Art Search has expired.  That means that I can no longer see teaching job ads for theater designers.  Perhaps this is a sign.

32.  If I hurry I might actually make it to bed before 4:00 a.m.

And with that I think I’m done.

Good night all.

Tune in tomorrow night for more musings my Maddog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

December the 26th.

December 26, 2010.

Once again we are up at the butt crack of dawn.  And where are we going?  To Adam’s step-grandmother’s house.  She’s better known as Imo-Jean.

She’s a hoot from the moment we get there.  She’s funny.  And outspoken.  And says it like it is.  And won’t be bullied by anyone.  She’s in her late 80’s, still lives in her own home, by herself.  And make no mistake, she will not put up with any foolishness, unless it’s from her.

And of course she gave me a huge hug as soon as I came in the house and with in minutes it was as if we’d know each other for years.

First up.

Breakfast casserole.

Yummy!

This is only important for two reasons.

Adam HATES casseroles.

Period.

You might be able to persuade him to eat sit if you called it by some other name.  But be careful.  He’s very astute.

And if you mention that you are putting Cambell’s Cream of Mushroom soup in any food product he’s more likely to eat his own feces than what you have cooking on the stove.

And the other reason this is important.

Adam hates his step mom’s cooking BECAUSE she is a lover of casseroles and Cream of Mushroom soup.

And.

She knows this.  It’s not like she’s new to the family.  She’ll do things like pour in the cream of mushroom soup while he’s standing there and then in 30 minutes hand him a spoon and ask him if it needs more salt.

So we are having breakfast casserole.

He’s not excited.  He is VERY good about pushing things around on his plate to make it look like he’s at least tried to eat it.  He doesn’t even entertain this idea at breakfast.  He just skips the dish all together.

AND.

Next up.

We get to watch other people open presents once again.

Yippee!

It’s not like they don’t get us anything.  We get one gift.  They get 20.  It takes us thirteen seconds to open ours.  It takes them 90 minutes to ooh and aah over things they don’t really like.  Imo Jean got his step mom and aunt these really “lovely” vace thingys.  They were hideous.  I loved them from the minute they were opened.  I’d have loved to brought one home with us.

Imo Jean gave us a “bucket” with some kits to make muffins etc.  We re-gifted it to my mom.  We also got something else but I don’t remember what it was.

Adam’s aunt gave us a 50 dollar American Express gift card.  Did I mention how much we love her.  And not just because she gave us an awesome gift.  She is amazing.  AMAZING!  She’s funny and smart and edgy and just like her mother is very likely to say what’s on her mind at any moment.

It took forever but finally it was over.

We tried to help clean up but Imo Jean wasn’t having it.  As she put it, “I’m old and live alone.  I need something to do after you all leave.”

First stop.  Diet Coke!

And then we were on our way to Amarillo.

Much to Adam’s dismay.  I requested to go back to the mall in Amarillo.  All of their Christmas stuff was being marked down and they had a Christopher Radko ornament  I wanted.  I would have bought it the day before but I didn’t want to pay full price for it.

So we were on our way.

And we got to drive past my favorite tourist site in Texas.

The Big Cross.

I’ll wait.  You click on the link and take a look.

I first discovered the cross when Michelle and I drove cross country.  We have pictures of us in front of the stations of the cross.  It’s a little scary.

Adam is not as impressed as I am.

We continue to drive.

And we get to the mall.

And we go into Macy’s and what would you know.  Of the five or six Christopher Radko ornaments left, mine is one of them.

This is my ornament.  We have no other religious ornaments on our tree, but we both really liked it.

I had to pee.  So I go to the bathroom.  Adam went to the cologne area to check out a new Marc Jacobs cologne called Bang.

As I come out of the bathroom I do a double take and see Adam’s cousin Emily sitting in the customer service area.

She’s on the phone and when she sees me she says hangs up, gives me a huge hug and asks what we are doing at the mall.  I tell her that we came to get the ornament.  (She was with us when we saw it the first time.)  She says, “That’s funny because I came to the mall to get it for you.  I was going to mail it to you but it was already gone.”  I told her that it was because we’d gotten the last one.

Turns out that Emily is at the mall because he soon to be ex-husband gave her a gift certificate for Macy’s.  She’s sitting in the customer service area because she wanted to know how much it was for.

$700.

Yes.  7 hundred dollars.

She’d tried to return it but he said no.  After a lot of debate and advice from other people she decided that if he was stupid enough to think she’d come back to him if he threw money at her then let him be stupid.

We spent the next hour shopping with Emily.

We decided that it was time to head home.

So out the door we went.

We were hungry and Adam said that he thought we should go to Furr’s. He loves Furr’s.  Which is a really strange name for a restaurant.  But it’s all you can eat.  And who doesn’t love an all you can eat buffet

So we stuff our faces until we have to unbutton our pants.

And then we get in the car, stop for Diet Cokes and head back to Adam’s house.

 

Getting caught up.

Ugh.

It’s late Monday night (Tuesday morning).  I should have been in bed an hour ago.

Let’s get everyone caught up.

I’ve been sick.

It’s actually kind of strange because when I first started getting sick I actually thought it was a good bout of depression over not wanting to go to work.  So I told myself to suck it up and went to work anyway.  Luckily there was a co-worker who had been a banquet server at a party that ended early that wanted to stay.  I said what the fuck and left.

The next day I was SICK.  I called in and spent the night on the couch.  That was on Thursday.

Friday, I thought I was better.  So I got up and left to go have fun with Adam.

I didn’t feel as well as I thought I did.

By the time I got home Friday night I had a headache the size of New Jersey.  I took Advil, allergy, and migraine medicine because I knew one of them would actually do the trick.

I felt like a normal human being when I got up Saturday morning.

Adam and I actually had a big day planned on Saturday.  It was warmish, and sunny and we wanted to be outside as much as possible.  His stepmom bought him a subscription to Country Living for his birthday and this past month had a whole section of stores in Brooklyn.  So with NO money in hand but a want to explore a part of the city that we had not explored before we set out.

It took about two hours for Adam to realize that he had whatever I’d just gotten over.

We cut our day short and came home.  We ordered cheeseburgers and vegged on the couch all night.  Actually I watched TV.  Adam slept.

Sunday he felt even worse.  We did get out to get sundries at Target.  But as soon as we were home, he crashed on the couch and remained there the rest of the night.

He didn’t feel all that well today, but he went to work anyway.  He’s only called out sick once in five years.  He probably wouldn’t have then but it was about three months after we started dating and he was a “little” sick and I assured him that he didn’t want everyone else to be a “little” sick.

Based on the conversations I had with him tonight, we are both just tired now.

Which is why I should have been in bed an hour ago.

 

Maddog Goes to School!

My head hurts.

I’m tired.

I’ve been arguing on Facebook again.  Well trying to.  I’m too tired to put together anything that makes sense.

It’s this whole union thing.

It’s this whole public/private sector thing.

Is there ANYONE in the world that thinks a teacher makes too much money?

The starting salary for a teacher in NYC is 45,000.  Anyone want to guess how far that will go?  Let me assure you that there are very few teachers living south of 125 street in Manhattan.

(side note:  a few years ago the city wanted to implement a rule that police officers had to live in the borough where they served.  It was abandoned quickly when it was pointed out that you couldn’t live in Manhattan on a police officer’s salary.)

The figure is the same in L.A.

In Amarillo, Texas it’s 42,000.

In Lexington, KY it’s 38,000.

In Boyd County, KY it’s 33,000.

I made more than that last year waiting tables.  And I only worked 140 days waiting tables.  Of course I have three college degrees but I know that I work with a few people that don’t even have high school diplomas.

I think it’s embarrassing that the people who are responsible for educating our children make less than waiters.

I taught high school for three years.  I know the hours that teachers keep.  Couple that with high school theater and you can guess how many more hours that meant for me.  I know how much planning it took.  How much time at home.  How much money out of my own pocket it took.

Speaking of that…ex-boyfriend David taught English in the public school system in NYC.  He never  handed out information to his students because that required him to go to Kinkos and get it copied himself because there was never paper and often the copier was broken.  Every time he gave a test, it took money from his pocket.

I know what it’s like to spend time after school with students who need help.  Or to come in early for parent teacher meetings.  Or those 8:00 a.m. faculty meetings.  Or those ridiculous department meetings.

I know what it’s like to stay up all night grading essays because grades are due the next day.

I know what it’s like to stay up late putting together homework for the kid who has mono.

I know what it’s like to spend countless hours rewriting curriculum that probably won’t be approved anyway.

Nothing I’ve experienced is special to me.  It’s things that EVERY teacher does EVERY day.  EVERY day!

So it appalls me when I see people on the news saying that teachers in Ohio/Wisconsin/New Jersey aren’t pulling their own weight.   That they don’t deserve the salaries they make.  The pensions.  The insurance.

This is usually followed by some bullshit about “bad” teachers.

Yes.

There are bad teachers who shouldn’t be allowed around children let alone teach them.

But.

There are also bad doctors, McDonald’s employees, judges, governors, subway conductors, etc.  There are bad apples every where.

Let’s face it.  I don’t think anyone ever became a teacher to get rich.  If you could get rich teaching, I’d still be doing it.

And if we cut the current crummy salary, and the insurance, and the pension…why would anyone want to do it?

We shouldn’t even be having this discussion.

Instead of finding a way to encourage good teachers to stay, they are being treated like second class citizens.

No one should be surprised to find out that our country’s educational system is failing it’s students.  I look at my own public education as proof.  I NEVER had a geography class in 12 years of school.  In 7th grade I could label a map of kentucky with the counties but I still can’t show you where Egypt is on a map.  I only took a foreign language because all of my friends were doing it.  After two years of public school, and two semesters in college all I know in Spanish is “Donde esta el bano?”  My civics class lasted an entire semester and was coupled with health.  Neither of the classes actually helped me any.  I can still recite the Preamble to the Constitution because I sing the school house rock song from the 70’s.  My senior English teacher’s baby was born with a defect, and they replaced her with a substitute.  She knew nothing of English.  I still don’t know how to properly document a research paper.  Couple that with the teachers that were bad and my public school education really sucked.   And I had it lucky.  It scares me to think what was going on in the parts of the country with less resources.

It’s late and my mind is wandering.

My point.

Pay teachers what they deserve.  In fact pay them double what you think they deserve.  Stop making them teach to the test.  Standardized tests are stupid.  They show nothing about what a student has learned.  AND RETAINED.  Give them more vacation time.  Better benefits.  A super duper big pension.  Pay them twice what politicians get paid.  Pay them more than just about anyone.  Make it so EVERYONE wants to be a teacher so that we can choose only the best.

Because.

As long as we continue to pay them shit.   Then we aren’t going to get the best.  And if we don’t have the best then stop complaining when our kids can’t compete with kids from the rest of the world.