Less than business casual

On the rare occasion I have to make an appearance in the district office, like when I was unexpectedly called for a meeting with my boss the other week, I always feel underdressed. For example, on the day I had to meet with my boss I showed up in jeans and a t-shirt, and although it was a school shirt, I felt tiny compared to my boss, who was in a suit.  Sometimes I want to explain to the district office people: look, I'm not wearing anything nice because I work with lice-ridden, bloody, puking kids, but I always think it'd be a little weird if I offered up such conversation.

 

Yesterday I happened to be wearing some nice sandals and left my hair down, which is well past shoulder-length. As luck would have it, a tornado of children blew through my office at lunch, including the bloodiest of bloody noses I have ever seen. The kid had dripped a trail of blood in, it was coming out his nose like a faucet running on high, and he didn't know what to do about it. (Neither did the several other kids in my office, one of whom started to go pale looking at the bloodied child.) I spent the tornadoed time cursing myself out for choosing to wear my hair down and sandals that day, just one of less than a handful of days I've ever done so in the past year. I wished I could take a picture of the floor of my office, which looked like a violent crime scene by the time it was all said and done, to send to the district office employees to show them there's a reason I wear what I wear.  

 

And in other duties as assigned: I held onto a tiny little dog shaking in my arms until my arms couldn't hold him anymore while we waited for his owner to come. He was found in the school parking lot, apparently not the first time he's come to school for a visit. To no one's surprise, I was the first to volunteer for the task; my only complaint is that it happened on the same day as the bloody tornado, the one day I wore something nice, and I got covered in dog hair.