One of the joys of working on my own
is going out to breakfast. About once a week, I take my notebook, the book I’m
reading, a pen and my wallet to the restaurant next door to my condo.
I’m a regular and most of the wait staff knows me. We’ve even become friends
over the last year. It’s like the song from “Cheers.”
As I walked out my front door this
morning and crossed the plaza to the Café Sel Marie, I had my mind on an
article I am writing about neighborhood schools. Chicago serves up beautiful autumn
mornings and the presentation today was exceptionally lovely. I decided I would
eat on the patio.
Just I went to walk through the front
door, one of the outside patrons stood to talk to a passerby. They stood chatting
over the patio fence. This patron was short, skinny, silver-haired and impeccably
dressed. My mind was full of a mental checklist of what else I wanted to write in
my article. I wasn’t paying attention.
In my own defense, I’m not functional
until I eat breakfast. My husband used to say I have P.B.S.: Pre-breakfast
Syndrome. For some people it’s coffee, for me it is food.
Two of my favorite servers were working
the early shift and they started laughing when I came through the door.
Allision had my tea ready and told me with she had already put my order in.
Kathryn, grinning like a fool, said, “Are you going to sit outside?”
Allision, with impish glee then asked,
“Are you going to talk to Rahm?”
I looked quickly outside at the man
standing at the fence. Egads! It was Rahm Emanuel. Nausea swept over me. I was
in psychic-sensory overload. Rahm before breakfast!
“Where’s he sitting?” I asked. As I
went through the door, he had his back towards me. Since I had forsworn my
trusty dagger, and since there was a very large, albeit well-dressed in a
custom suit, bodyguard standing there, I decided to not stab the mayor in the
back. I quietly slipped by to the furthest possible table.
I was agitated. I so wanted to give
him my two cents but my mind simply wouldn’t fire. I loath him but the way to
talk to someone like him is to have you head screwed on right and schmoosh (to
use the political phrase.) I’m generally a great schmoosher but never – before
- food.
I thought about going and barfing on him.
Being barfed on is a form of teacher initiation. You never are really a veteran
teacher until you have been sprayed with vomit although boogers sometimes can
be used instead. Also, barfing did not really require a mental process which is
what I was lacking.
I tried to write a few notes about my neighborhood
school article in my notebook. Suddenly, Rahm shouted, “Great dog!” as a jogger
trotted by with a big, furry sheepdog. It was as if he was one of those spoiled
little boys who have to make sure everyone notices him. The jogger stopped and
told the mayor what a great job he was doing. Barfing might have worked at that
very moment. I certainly wasn’t getting much written.
My food arrived. Allision and Kathryn
stopped by to chat, looking very amused by my disgust. Much of that disgust was
with me but most of it was with the Chicago Public neighborhood schools-hating
twinkie sitting a few tables away. Why wouldn’t my mind work?
Any student I ever had will tell you
that my biggest pet peeve is to be touched while I eat. I’m like a dog.
Everyone knows the way to get bitten is to touch a dog while it eats. I’m a
well trained dog. I don’t bite but I do growl.
Food was what I needed. Just as I put
a bite of scone in my mouth, Rahm Emanuel, like the polished politician he is, comes
sauntering towards me on the way to the bathroom. As he passed my table, he
said cheerfully, “How’s it going?” And then he TOUCHED my shoulder and walked
away. I was eating and he TOUCHED me.
I flinched. I nearly spat my food at
him. I also nearly choked. I wanted to take a shower. Still there was nothing I
could say with a cinnamon-chip scone gagging me. Aaaagggghhhhhh!
Allision was suddenly behind me.
“Breathe,” she whispered. I did. I hadn’t realized I was holding my breath. My
blood pressure must have been 2,000,000/6547.
A minute or two later, the mayor
climbed into the back seat of a black minivan. He even popped back out of the vehicle
a couple times to smile and wave at people. By the time my mind was awake, he
was long gone.
I am still not sure what I would have
said. There is a long list of things. I’m going to write it down and put it in
my wallet. That way the next time I encounter Rahm before breakfast, I’ll be
prepared.
rahm, education, chicago neighborhood school, chicago public schools, nightmare, cps
