Greetings Earthlings

Hello out there in blog-land! This is my first blogspot post (even though it says I've been a blogger since 2008, ha!), and I hope to not be a total bore.

I will begin the journey with a story... a "Classic Mary Beth Story" story.

So it was my second week teaching and I had already established myself as the craziest person anyone at Banks County Elementary had ever met. The media clerk, Jennifer, came to me during my planning period and asked if I would help promote the upcoming book fair. Of course I was eager to oblige, so I walked with her to the media center to see how I could help out.

We get there and I see a giant red fluff on the floor. Jennifer said that I would walk around with her dressed Clifford, the Big Red Dog who happened to be the mascot for the book fair. I was game, so I tried on the costume. It was HUGE! Way too big for me being so short. But hey, Jennifer was going to be walking around with me, right? I'd be fine.

So the big day came for our tour of the school with me dressed as Clifford. I got to school early to put on the costume so we could greet the kids as they got off of the bus. The costume has several parts to it and it is impossible to put on by yourself. The main body section was put on first, but I couldn't zip it. My arms were almost parallel to the floor because there was so much padding to the body of the costume. Next come the feet paws which Jennifer had to put on for me or I would have fallen over, then the hand paws, and lastly the giant Clifford head. I could barely see out of it. I could only see what was directly in front of me at my eye level. Again, Jennifer was going to be walking with me. I'd be fine.

Incident #1:
Jennifer walks me out to the buses and says, "wave to the kids, Clifford!" so I raise my hand to wave and whack a kid right in the face. Never saw him. Never felt him. Sent him toppling. Yeah.

Incident #2:
We walked through half the school, then to avoid spontaneous combustion, I took the costume off to take my students to lunch and recess. I went back at one o'clock so we could get the rest of the school and started to put the costume back on. Jennifer was busy, so I tried to put it on as much as I could by myself in the storage room. I successfully got on the main body part (zipping excluded) and started on the feet paws. I got one on... not so with the other. BAM! Yep. Fell to the floor. Had it not been for all the padding of the costume, I would have broken my arm. So I tried to get up. No such luck. All the tummy padding made it impossible to crunch myself to sit up. I even grabbed on to the shelving in the storage room, but just slipped and fell again. I laid there a good 2 minutes before I was found. Jennifer laughed, took my picture, then helped me up.

Incident #3:
The kicker. So we go to the last room of the tour--the special ed resource room. I stand at the top of the hall and Jennifer goes to tell them that we're coming so as not to scare anyone. It's the first pod from the top of the hall, so she isn't too far from me. Jennifer gets the okay from the teachers and waves for me to come. I can see her. She's right at my eye level right in front of me. Walking... walking... walking... CRASH! BOOM! BANG! SPLAT! Custodial cart right in my path. Knocked the breath out of me. Even through all the padding. Had the padding not been there, I would have broken all of my ribs. I did have a good many bruises, though. So I'm splatted out in the floor, unable to breathe, trying to gasp for air in my giant smiling Clifford costume. Jennifer was walking with me. I'll be okay. Yeah right!

So there you go. One of MANY classic Mary Beth stories. :-)