Crying

The other day one of my students brought a tiny little kitten to class. It had been given to her by another of my students who found it on the street and wanted to keep it, but decided not to because the kitten "cried all night" when she took it home.
"Yah," I said, "It's a baby, eh? All babies cry."

And it looked as if the baby cat had been crying. I told her maybe the little thing had an eye infection. Maybe she should take it to the doctor. She said, "Hmmmmm,...no."
Okay, then.

Maybe the kitten was crying because its new owner was wearing a T-Shirt of LIES!

The kitten was not white, nor was it wearing a ribbon of any sort.

Every time the kitten wasn't snuggled in the girl's arms, it was yowling. When it was placed upon the table it would stumble across and crawl onto a boy named Michael.

Maybe the kitten prefers purple shirts. Purple shirts that aren't filled with LIES!

Today I gave the girl a little toy mouse on a pink string for the kitten. Karen and Jane freaked out at the sight of the mouse. They're rodent-phobic. The girl left after my class finished at six, but returned for a grammar class at eight, reporting that the kitten really likes the mouse. I wondered, later on, what she's feeding the kitten, and if they have a litter box and what-not. Caring for a cat here is a pain in the ass. It's not like you can just stop at the corner store and pick up cat food and supplies. I go downtown for Kamikaze's stuff, though there is now one pet store in my area that carries some cat products. I hope she cares for her new kitten, but as I looked at the little thing, I caught myself thinking about chicks in a bag.

Speaking of things that cry, yesterday a disabled man wandered into the school with a big bag of things he was selling. Mostly there were packs of socks and toothbrushes. Jane initially said she wasn't interested, but then decided to have a look. She relented, and agreed to buy a 5-pack of socks, but started ripping open the bags to snatch out the pairs she liked and assemble herself a hand-picked assortment. The guy was protesting quite a lot, but Jane was overpowering him with, "Look! I'm buying your socks, but I want what I want!" When he started to cry, she started yelling at him to stop being a baby. While she was screaming at him, I set off for class. When she stopped by my classroom door a few moments later, I said, "Jane, why do you make your boyfriend cry?"

She told me to shut up.

And speaking of things that make me want to cry, today when I walked into my second to last class of the day, a little ten year old girl reached out and clasped the zipper of the sweatshirt I was wearing and WHOOSH - totally unzipped me.
I was only wearing a sports bra underneath.
Nice.