Gross, True, and Funny Stories... All from Today

Esteban asks me where the boy's bathroom pass is... I tell him I'm not sure, but to go ahead to the restroom. He returns to announce that the pass is floating in the toilet. "What??" I follow Esteban, and sure enough, there in the blue boy's bathroom, floating in a toilet, is the "passport" that I made for emergencies. I thought it over for about 5 seconds, and realizing how sensitive the sewage system was to toilet paper, I knew there was no way it could handle cardstock and contact paper.... so, you guessed it. I stuck my hand in, fished it out, threw it in the garbage can, and immediately washed my hands. Esteban sprints back to the classroom, announcing my arrival with "She stuck her hand in the toilet!!!" Wowee, how disgusting is that. Boys were impressed and girls were grossed out.

Later, we're putting up our chairs at the end of the day, and a girl notices a rock-solid piece of chewed gum on the bottom of her chair. She squeals, I immediately hover and observe that the cause is gray blobby gum. I thought "Well, if I can stick my hand in a toilet, I can surely touch ABC gum"... so you guess it, I pulled the gum right off the chair and threw it in the garbage. Again, impressing the boys and grossing out the girls.

So then students leave, and I work on reorganizing my posters that are creating a mound behind my desk. I made a giant black folder to hold all my posters flat, and I'm pulling posters out from behind my desk to place into the folder. I pull out the last poster, and .... what's that dirt pile there?... Ants are building a castle behind my posters!!! (The first thing you learn living in Costa Rica is that ants are everywhere. You can put out as much pesticide as you want... they'll always overcome it.) Seriously, this palace I found was quite substantial. I swept it into my dustpan and dumped it in the garbage. Sorry, ants, but you're home cannot be near my own dwelling place.