It’s Monday, and time for more things I haven’t done yet.  Key word there:  YET.  Many of these I will never do, of course, because I’m just not that kind of person, but some of these things, I might do, someday.  If I get a ROUND TO IT.

1.  I have never gotten a traffic ticket.

2.  I have never shoplifted.

3.  I have never NOT voted.

4.  I have never been in a fistfight.

5.  I have never hurt anyone on purpose.  I think we all hurt each other without realizing it, and overreacting sometimes hurts, but deliberately hurting someone?  No.

6.  I have never learned how to wink with my right eye.

7.  I do not know how to knit.  When I was a child, I asked my grandmother to teach me to knit, and she laughed at me and said she didn’t know how, either.  I had thought all grandmothers knitted; all the grandmothers in my books knew how to knit.

8.  I have never driven a car in a large city.  Outskirts, yes.  Airports, as of this summer, yes.  (Thank you, Hula, for so many things!)  Inside the city limits?  No.

9.  I have never gotten a tattoo, although I’ve been tempted many times and I’m not dead yet.

10.  I have never sat in a hospital waiting room while a loved one had a quadruple bypass, but this one will change after the 17th.

I am really quite a boring person.  Most of the things other people do as a rule, I have never done.  Some of those same things, I don’t know that I ever want to.

I am not a particularly brave person, either.  Not for myself, anyway.  I mean, I would take a bullet or lie down in the road for my children or your children or my students or any of YOU, but if it were just me, I’d probably just pass out cold in a pool of flopsweat.

I will confess something to you all, though:  I had a student once who was so obnoxious, I would have to think twice about taking a bullet for him.  I still feel bad about that.  Not bad enough to change my mind, but bad enough to worry about it.

But jeepers, the kid was KILLER OBNOXIOUS.  I still have nightmares about him re-appearing in my classroom.

Also?  There are a lot of parents I wouldn’t take a bullet for.  Do I feel bad about that?  Not really.  People who aren’t kind to their own children are a waste of earth space.  Parents who buy cigarettes for themselves instead of socks for their children are scum.  Parents who look out for #1 and treat their kids like #2 are not worth burying.  No, no bullet-taking for them.

But I’d do it for most people.

If I seem a little distracted and disoriented for a while, there’s a reason for it.  I’ll tell you later.

In the meantime, I need a Diet Coke.  And some almonds.