Chainsaw

This is the funniest thing that's happened to me since I went to work at the school; I just hope it translates in writing. If not, you'll have to trust me that I giggled all day long after this happened.

Yesterday we had a fire prevention assembly. It was presented 3 times--once to each grade, and it was given close enough to my room that, if my classroom door wasn't closed, we could hear the louder parts of the presentation.

My 6th graders (about 7 boys) were quietly working away when the fire people started demonstrating different alarm sounds such as the fire engine siren and smoke alarms. Then I heard what sounded like them demonstrating a chain saw. I was thinking to myself, "that's weird, but I suppose...if they had to cut you out of something..."

At the same time, one of the boys looks up and says, "what was that?" I look around the room, thinking he heard something else and see a boy in the back of the room who is beat RED. His shoulders are bouncing up and down. It dawns on me that he's trying to hold in laughter.

I am on it!!! I quickly tell the other boy to go back to work (the others haven't even looked up) and I try not to make eye contact with the boy who is now heaving in his seat. No...he wasn't choking...that loud chainsaw noise that I thought came from another room was him TOOTING!!!

He really tried to keep it together. I decided he must not want the other boys to know because he hadn't made a laughing sound, but he was still shaking in his seat and still bright red in the face! It was so funny, and I was really have to try hard not to laugh myself.

Finally he got it together--sort of. He quit laughing, went back to his normal color, and almost looked like he had been crying, which he hadn't been. I was going to go over and quietly ask him if he was alright, but I feared the smell, so I hollered across the room, "you alright?" He nodded yes and went back to reading his book, but every once-in-awhile, when I looked up, his eyes were pointed at the book page, but his shoulders were shaking again!

I couldn't WAIT for class to get over so I could go tell some other teachers! When I told the story at home last night, the prince assured me that the proper way to handle that would have been for me to say, "Good One!" as soon as I figured out what was going on! It is middle school, after all!