Uh oh. They got me.

Is this in any way believable?
I know we're not supposed to respond, but if I could figure out how to scream mad laughter in their faces, I would.

"Transeer"?? (To a tollbooth and add 35% service fee?)
"Thank you for your immediate attraction"??
Oh, and check out the official seal on the upper left.

I have three or four posts in various stages sitting here in drafts. 
I just haven't managed to finish them.
I'm still reading you if you're writing, just having some motivation issues.

Which reminds me, it's after noon and I need to get a shower 'cause I have like 5 loads of laundry to do.

Ohhh, I'm sooooo sick?

Poor Bailey. 

Last Friday she went to the school office about 9:30 AM, complaining that her tummy hurt.

Her mom left work, came to school and picked her up. When they got home, Bailey was magically fine. For the rest of the day she was just fine. No fever or other symptoms. She was marked absent in the app we use with a message that they were monitoring her, but that she had no symptoms that would exclude her from school or my program.

She was back on Monday. But Steffie, seeing how her sister got to stay home, watch TV and hang out with Mom, got 'sick' at school too.

Same result. As a precautionary measure, she was picked up and taken home. And was back on Tuesday

So Wednesday, Steffie decided she'd try the same thing again. 

The school notified her parents and Dad told them he was not able to pick up immediately, that if she did not have a fever or any other excludable symptoms, please send her to my program after school and he would get there as soon as he could.

Steffie was fine, she ate a snack with the rest of the kids and was all bouncy and cheerful. You know, normal.

Her dad showed up about 3:15, not even an hour into program time. Both girls were surprised. They ran to him, and Steffie said, "Daddy! Daddy!! Can we go to the park??!!"

He said, "No we can't go to the park. You're SICK, remember?"

She said, "Oh I was sick, but I feel just fine now!" 

Dad did not look happy.
He left work two hours early to come get the kids.

This is not Bailey. Or Steffie.

So the next day, Bailey went to the school office to say her tummy hurt again. The attendance secretary asked Bailey, "Do you want me to call your mom or dad?"

She said no.

"Well, you don't have a fever. You're not throwing up. What would you like me to do for you?"

And Bailey said darkly, "Nothing. There's nothing you can do for me."

I know it's not funny to her, and I'd never laugh at her, but it is sort of humorous. Both girls have been lectured about lying to say they're ill, parents need to be at work. I overheard Dad telling Bailey on Friday that, "If you ever are really sick, I still want you to call me. I will take care of you. But calling me when you're not sick and pretending that you are will get you in trouble every time."

There are kids who complain their stomach hurts when they're anxious. They don't have the vocabulary to explain their anxiety, they just know something is bothering them and those are the words they use to describe it. Fairly common.

But this wasn't that.
 
"There's nothing you can do for me." 

Oooh, I'm in trouble....

 
This was sent via text to my phone.

I guess it looks more or less official.
And I know that people fall for this shit all the time.
But there aren't any toll roads in Oregon. 
I have never had a speeding ticket. Like, ever.
There were no other notifications, which should make anyone suspicious as this is designed to get a person to panic based on 'THIS IS YOUR FINAL WARNING' stuff.

And the penalties, like not being allowed to register any of my vehicles, don't work that way.

My name is not included anywhere, nor is there any identifying information. Of course it's a scam.

I'm not dumb enough to click on the QR code with my phone, but I have an old phone that still works.

Hm. Wonder where it leads.
Scroll past the scary certificate looking thing for what happened when I looked at the QR code.

So I powered up my old phone and scanned the QR code. 

First it took me to a page where I had to click on a box to verify that I am human.

The header on the page after that said MASSDMV.

It was an official looking website for the State of Massachusetts.
Apparently I owe $16.95.

Now obviously I'm not paying them anything, but my guess is that if I had paid them the nominal fee by credit/debit card, they'd take whatever they could out of my account.

In a way, I'd think that a person who was falling for the scam would look at that nominal fee and think, huh, all this threatening stuff over 17 bucks? And then maybe not proceed. But who knows? 

Anyway, I didn't try to pay it, but it might have been fun to use an old card just to make them spent some time on it. But maybe not. Better to just not engage.

It's not a fortune teller.

I can understand why you'd think this is a fortune teller.

I happen to know that you're wrong.

But of course, I have inside information.
Benji made this just before we went outside. 

He's been making fortune tellers for a few days ever since he learned how to fold one. He's proud of having learned to do it, so he has made quite a few. He doesn't quite understand how one works, he opens and closes it the same direction each time and hasn't figured out the two-handed approach that opens it first one way, then the other.

The process of getting to one's fortune seems arbitrary, one can choose three for example, and he'll open and close it 10 times. And then lift up the flap on six. I don't claim to understand it. 

Haha, he can't claim understanding, either.

He brought it to me on the playground and said, "Do you know what this is?"

Silly me. I guessed 'fortune teller'.

He said, "No. It looks like a fortune teller, but," and here he lowered his voice, "That's just a cover up. A disguise. What this really is," and he leaned even closer, lowered his voice a little more, "is an abomination."

It is so. Hard. Not. To. Laugh.

"How is it an abomination, Benji?" He opened the four points a bit and said, "This is its mouth. But it doesn't eat with its mouth. Instead, you put the food in its butt. It doesn't even have to chew it, then the food goes backwards and comes out its mouth. It farts a lot and doesn't have any friends. That's why it's an abomination."

Then he tried to hand it off to me so he could go play, and I showed him how to fold it into a square and put it in his pocket, explaining that if all 20 kids gave me something to hold, I'd have my hands full.

He skipped off to play, abomination in his pocket.

I do not know where he gets his ideas.

::snort:::

 

Some Blanket!

Soooo... is it just me or does the 'art' pictured on this electric blanket insert look like an inflatable companion? 
I saved the clear zippered bag it came in to make bug wings. 
It's Please Bug Me month in my program.

We're making all kinds of interesting critters.

No blow up dolls, however. 

Put a bandaid on it.

Tuesday afternoon as we were setting up the program, I moved our rolling construction shelf unit (known as a zone cart at the company I work for) up against the wall. The carts are birch plywood with a nice finish.

They're not cheap, between 400 and 700 depending on what you get. 



The cart isn't new, wasn't new when I opened this site in 2023. Seems to be wearing out now.

The front edge on top got me and a huge sliver went into my right hand at the base of my index and middle fingers.

Holy crap, that really hurt! 
Worse, it went in at an angle and was deep.

::sigh::

I tried to pull it out with tweezers and broke off the part that was barely sticking up, leaving the rest of it embedded.

Shit shit shit.

So I washed my hands, applied some antibiotic cream and a bandage and went back to setting up.

Covered the barely rough edge with some blue masking tape so no one else would have the same thing happen.

It was painful enough and buried deeply enough that I was concerned I wouldn't be able to remove it on my own. 

And since it was in my dominant hand, that made it even more difficult.

So as much as I hated to, I filed an incident/accident report in case I had to seek medical attention. 
Can you imagine? 
Work comp for a splinter. 
Sheesh.

So I did a lot of changing bandages and using antibiotic cream between Tuesday afternoon and Friday morning. Stupid thing. Every time I bumped it, it hurt. Every time I used my hand, it reminded me it was there. And never coming out, apparently.

On Thursday morning, I took my daily shower and noticed the skin over the splinter was soft and didn't hurt after the shower. So I told Eric that he was going to have to help me dig it out on Friday morning. He's off work on Fridays. 

I glopped unscented lotion on the wounded area and covered it with still another bandage when I went to bed on Thursday night. 

Got up Friday morning, found the skin soft and pliable and grabbed a needle and my tweezers and figured I could at least try. 
I got the damn thing out myself.
Eric was glad, he hated the idea of possibly hurting me.

It was almost half an inch long, yes, I measured it, and came out in two pieces. The 2nd piece was at an angle deep into the tissue under my index finger, but it didn't hurt to take it out, apparently the wound healed up a bit around it?

Score one for the good guys. There is no residual soreness. The rough edges of the skin I opened up are kind of a nuisance, they keep catching on my clothes,but I have lots of bandages. Tie dyed bandages. Of course. And no, I did not tie them. Or dye them.

Scrolling through some videos this morning I came across one from a teacher who has lots of video shorts. She talked about kids and how they always want bandages.
It's true. 

The video suggested that a bandage makes them feel better, so why not give them one?

I don't always read the comments, most of the time they're a waste or just aggravating, but there was some speculation that kids are 'just asking for attention'. 
As if that's a bad thing.
Of course they're asking for attention.
They're children. 

Why should asking for a bandage cause the adult in charge to get into big boss mode? It's just a bandage. 

Why not assume the child needs attention and get down off your goddamn high horse and SEE that child? 

Even if I had to pay for them myself I'd still give them to kids who think they need them. 

It makes them feel better. 
How is that wrong?
Sure wish I could feel better in such an easy way!

I don't question kids who ask for a bandage. 

They usually feel like they need to prove to me why they've asked for one, though. 
You can tell they've been questioned and faced with skepticism before.

They hold out an index finger with a tiny spot of dark pink or point vaguely to a spot on their arm or leg and tell me it hurts. 
They are accustomed to having to justify their requests. 
Ask permission to ask for help. 
Ever notice that?

I always give them one. I have bandaids in my clipboard and in the little first aid pack that goes everywhere with us.

I ask if they want to do it themselves or if they need help with it. 
Most of them are self sufficient and want to do their own. 
I hand them a bandage and watch.

Occasionally they're not as great at it as they thought they were, and they ::gasp:: wreck the bandage!!!

If you immediately thought they look aghast and embarrassed because they failed at putting on a band aid, you're right.

If they need another, I give them one. 
While saying something like, "I don't know why bandages don't behave better, always tying themselves in knots is not helpful!"

I may even lecture the new bandage. "Look, Buddy, behave yourself and go on straight! We don't want to have to tell you again!" 

Any time I can add humor and know the child(ren) will appreciate it is a good thing.

I've noticed that many adults, when faced with a crying, hurt child say, "Oh, you're okay, you're okay."

I don't like that. Even if they're just emotional and not physically hurt, it's still pain. It's not my job to tell them they're okay, it's up to them to let me know when they actually are okay.

I feel like people should ask, "Are you okay? Would you like to sit with me awhile and see if it starts to feel better? I'm sorry this happened to you."

It's similar to going to a doctor for help as an adult and being dismissed. 
The condescending pat on the arm or the leg and, "There, there," or something similar. "You're fine. Follow up in a month." Or whatever. 

People want to be heard. For the listener(s) to make an effort to understand them. Maybe offer to help fix the situation.

Kids... well, they're people. 
They want to be heard.
If they want a bandage or an ice pack, go get it.

It's a big deal to them.