When I was working for a certain university, there came a point during the winter months where everybody inevitably lost his or her minds. I can only assume this happens to almost everyone in the realm of education. The days get shorter. Now you know all your kids and they’re beginning to annoy you. You wish Christmas break/Martin Luther King Day/a snow day/summer vacation would just hurry the heck up and get here.
I was not a teacher at this university, but I worked closely with the teachers and students. I enjoyed it immensely. Also (thankfully), I was able to witness the mid-year madness without having to experience it 100%.
I was upstairs one afternoon, waiting for my lunch to finish nuking in the microwave when a colleague entered. Let me preface this by saying it was lunchtime, and I was clearly using the microwave….no other appliance. This was obvious. Especially because it was one of those microwaves where the light bulb inside was so bright you thought it might cook you just for standing close to it.
So my colleague walked in. He looked at me. He looked at the coffee machine. He looked back to me. “Watched pots,” he said.
“What?”
He repeated himself, just as calm and monotone as before. “Watched pots.”
“Huh?” I didn’t know what other response to give. It was absurd. What was this man talking about?
He sighed. I could almost hear his thoughts. He was clearly exasperated that I didn’t understand him. Just before he strolled out of the room (because apparently he didn’t come in there for any particular reason to begin with) he said slowly, “Watched pots…never boil.”
Later that year, I was daydreaming and looking out the floor-to-ceiling window in my office. Another colleague suddenly appeared with his face pressed up against the glass, looking positively miserable. He mimed shooting himself in the head and fell motionless to the sidewalk. Then stayed that way for a couple minutes. I watched two separate groups of students walk by his limp body without a backward glance.
Eventually he climbed to his feet and looked around, dejected. After giving me the most pitiful look imaginable, he skulked off to quarantine himself in his office for the rest of the afternoon.
“Here we go again,” I thought. “I’m living in an insane asylum with no walls.”
I always find it difficult to get through these long dark months. Everything I look forward to seems months away. Warmth, sunshine, maybe a flower or two. I have one of those crazy light machines that simulate sunlight but I can only stare at it for so long before I feel like running into it like a human moth. So I reminisce. That way I know I’m not the only one having a hard time. Winter can make everyone a bit crazy, and there is some comfort in the fact that if I subject someone else to my nuttiness that maybe, just maybe, they’re not judging me. Too much. After all…watched pots. Watched pots, I always say.
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1 comment
suzan magee says:
Feb 5, 2010
You hit the nail on the head for me. One thing I find myself doing, planning what to do when the weather becomes bearable. Spring clean, organize my closets, garden, walk without fear of falling on the ice,(that’s an age thing) and travel. I’m thinking of a cross continent trip in an RV to the tip of Argentina! Sitting in a beach lounger under an umbrella in the sun on the beaches of Montevideo drinking a chocolate drink and admiring the young hard bodies glistening. Ohh, gotta go be by myself for awhile and do what I do to break the tedium of winter…