My Job Gets Pretty Real

Today was a fairly standard day at work, for the most part. I helped a few kids with their math homework, apparently rounding is hell of hard. I tried unsuccessfully to remember this one little girls name. It was either Tejan or Tejar, which is pronounced either Tay-zhan or Tay-zhar. Ashley and Margot I can handle. Tejan slips right out of my mind, and I feel like I'm always mispronouncing it and I think the nine year olds are all gonna laugh at me.

After the tutoring part was over I went out on the playground to play. All the boys asked me to play Man on the Run, a tag-like game, and the girls wanted me to do flips with them on the monkey bars. The boys were more insistent, so I opted to play their game, but it turns out I probly should have chilled with the girls.

Naturally all these fifth and sixth grade boys have something to prove by outrunning a college kid, so I had to be it first. It went alright for awhile, until I started to get into it. I got really into it. So into it that I wasn't really thinking that I was 160 pounds of sheer testosterone and these were a bunch of 11 year olds.

There I was, running down this kid, he was kinda fast, I was a lot faster, when all of a sudden he takes a dive. I took a split second to analyze my surroundings. There's a fairly solid looking wrought iron fence about ten feet ahead of me. There's a fairly solid looking oak tree a few feet in front and to my left, with treacherous roots writhing about on the ground. There's a fallen 12 year old directly in front of me. I was going too fast to avoid all three obstacles. I realize I'm going to have to take on at least two of them. My cognitive powers told me that, because of the child's position in relation to the tree, there's a chance that I'd put him in the hospital if I used him to arrest my momentum.

I decided to not seriously injure a small child and did a graceful jump. I'm not really sure what happened next, but a couple seconds later I found myself pushing myself to my feet and spitting out a mouthful of sand. I started to express my feelings verbally, but then I realized where I was and said something to the effect of "Shhhiiiiiiiiuuh..."I did a quick check of my electronics, which were all fine. I feel a little dazed, I must have hit the ground kind of hard. The kids are yelling at me to start the game up again. I am still it after all.

I groggily take up the game, chase down some slow kid and make him it, and head over to the girls. Maybe they're not being so violent. "Mr. Ross you're really sandy," says Tejan/ar, studying me critically.

"Yeah I kind of fell down."

"Mr. Ross, you're bleeding," says Ashley, pointing to my elbow.

"Oh. I am." I am.

They pepper me with dozens of questions and I tell them to chill while I go wash my face. I look like a wild animal. My face is totally covered in sand. I try to wash it off, but the school bathrooms have those damn push button sinks so I can't ever actually get any water to my face. I kind of brush some sand off and head home early.

I've still got sand in every orifice on my head, and my elbow has a golf ball sized lump on it. Okay maybe not golf ball sized, but it's swollen. I got injured playing tag with elementary school children.

Editor's note: I'm incredibly white. I didn't realize until I saw my arm next to my tummy in that picture.