Leave it to Beaver

So I go to drop Lilly off at school, and they put us behind a metal fence now, (the "cage" and I like to call it) so all the loving parents get to stand on the other side of the prison bars, in the holding area, and wave white handkerchiefs to their kids as they walk to their lines. No more lazily walking your kids inside. It's really retarded, and has ruined the family atmosphere of the school. I thought I alone could kill socializing, with my reclusive, social revulsion-ist skills, but here the school has done it for me, with this warm-hearted metal fence that we all gather behind.

Anyway, this morning, I was standing there with Robert as the bell is ringing and Lilly is almost the last one in before they clank the gate closed, and then I look next to me and there, quietly, is standing Lilly's teacher, just a nice, regular guy who works in the garden and wears khakis alot. But Lilly's whole class is over THERE, on the other side of the fence, lining up. And here is Mr. B, standing next to me and Robert, smiling. For a second I think he's gone MAD, he's crossed over, he's no longer teaching, or teaching from afar. He's kinda sweetly absent-minded. Has he forgotten his class? "Hey Mr. B!" I say, like it's not weird that he's not hurrying since the bell is ringing. I am internally worrying about his tardy note, for himself. "Welcome to the cage! What are you doing over here?"

"I'm thinking about beavers," he says.

Yes.

Many things go through my mind. You cannot say beaver and think of the animal. It just does not pop up first. So it's only 8 a.m., the bell is ringing, the teacher is on the wrong side of the fence, and considering the Mr. Rogers way he is dressed, and that I still have 4 yrs left at this school, I am NOT allowed to make a beaver joke. Though it is desperate to come out.

"Okay!" I say. He pauses a very long time, so long that beavers are flashing in my head, and I try erasing them and molding them into the animal beaver. Then he goes on to say he wants to make dioramas, and they're studying beavers, and he wants help with the art project. Of course. Those kind of beavers. Science. We're at SCHOOL. Also, he wants to plant some marigolds.

I'm still not sure why he's on this side of the fence. Lilly is now standing in her line, in fact the whole class is way OVER THERE, looking around for him, and he, the leader, is over here, just shooting the shit. They lock the gate as we're talking, and I just feel awkward until he finally starts to go on in. This was the parental cage. He should be on the other side. There's rules to these kind of space invasions.

Teachers aren't allowed to say beavers and then leave it hanging like that. The joke just wanted to throw up, in fact I still have it in there and when I go in tomorrow to plant flowers and talk beavers, the beavers are still all in there, all dammed up but lurking.