A Swing and A Miss: Failed Blogposts I Never Actually Wrote Concerning Embarrassing Stuff I'd Rather Forget

One would think that with the wealth of free time I currently have on my hands ---summer vacation from teaching, kids no longer living at home, a clearer mind thanks to a brief respite from stress-induced impulse drinking...and...a laptop at the ready---I'd have written a long novel's worth of carefully crafted posts all published with the appropriate title Magna Carta Holy Grail but Kanye West totally scooped me on that front. However, it must be said that Kanye's reasons for using such a lofty title probably have more to do with the enormity of his ego and mine is just a symbolic accounting for the many, m-a-n-y times a day I thought about writing, said I was going to, and then... did not.

Oh...the promises I made to myself all those times I avoided potential parent contacts by hiding under my desk I was too busy with work related nonsense and now I've let myself down again! I don't think I'm alone when I say that the creative juices really do flow best when you're drunk you're too busy to do anything worthwhile with the ideas they bring forth. And I had some ideas, though upon later examination they seemed mostly to follow an unsettling theme illustrating my majestic lack of common sense at various junctures of my life. Such as:

*The semester I was a "walk on" on the college track team because I was somewhat faster than many of my non-runner friends and because my experience with actual athletes was...how we say...non existent? I thought that I, with my whippet-thin body and "Elmo arms" that had lifted nothing heavier than a dictionary,  would have no problem in being equal to everyone who had been running competitively since the invention of movies with sound. The willingness to have faith in oneself is important, but it is clear that it must also be grounded in some kind of reality. Obviously, I had not learned this yet. Oh, the hubris of youth!

Which is why during the inter-squad meet I didn't know enough to wear shorts under my thin white sweats, which were to be removed before we got into the starting blocks. I had to run in the sweatpants, which looked awkward not only because I looked like a white balloon in motion, but also because my bright pink underwear could be seen through the pants--not by only by those running nearby, but also from any low flying aircraft overhead. Also? I was the last one on my squad to cross the finish line.


*There was the time that I--in a fit of young teenage angst--possibly over dramatized the familial dysfunction that was going on inside my childhood home and wrote a lengthy and detailed letter to the advice columnist at Seventeen Magazine. Cut to a few months later when I get an envelope addressed to me from the magazine and a letter inside advising me and the fellow maniacs in my family to seek professional help posthaste. This was problematic for several reasons: 1) My mother did not allow me to read the magazine because--choosing to believe as she did a literal interpretation of its audience--decided I had to actually BE seventeen in order to be a legal member of its target demographic. Therefore, she could never know that I had written them in the first place, which was difficult since I was not of an age where I got personally addressed mail at my home unless it was my birthday.  2) I couldn't remember exactly what I had said (Had I exaggerated or not??) in the letter that had touched off the clear concern this stranger had for me, and 3) I was confused and afraid that--just perhaps--my family was crazy and now someone outside our family unit knew and would tell everyone.

It is my personal belief that the origins of my perforated gastric ulcer from three years ago can be  traced to the moment immediately after I received that letter.

*There was also the time when, in a fit of good will for my fellow human, I was so moved by a lonely young man's Dear Abby letter that I decided to write him at the address he provided. Because he was lonely and sad. And (You've got mail!!) he wrote back!!!! From his cell at the state penitentiary!! Did I know he was in prison when I wrote to him?? Incredibly, the answer to this question is yes.  Because I had been so chatty about myself in my letters about what I did and where I lived, my new jailbird pen pal began talking about what I might do to help him reacclimate whenever he got out. You know...maybe my dad could get him a job or something!?  This unforseen turn of events would have necessitated having to tell my very strict father (Whom we sometimes referred to as Captain Von Trapp.) that I had helpfully provided an incarcerated man with information about our family. That I had thought writing to a prisoner AT ALL was a good idea would have seemed to them beyond the scope of understanding. Let alone that this idea, apart from all other worthwhile things in my life that I should have followed through on, was the one that took root inside my hormonal mind.

Tragically, there are plenty more stories like this and I suppose they could serve as an embarrassing reminder of how stupid I was and for how long I remained that way. Or I could decide to focus on the fact that I did eventually turn into a relatively normal person with a miraculously amazing family and a decent work ethic and not a walking cautionary tale. People grow up and they get smarter in the process. Most of them, anyway. But they, like me, have a secret list of horrific missteps to remind them of when this wasn't always the case. Even today, and just to be safe, I never wear white pants...with anything.

And then...

Mercifully, the school year ended right before I voluntarily fed myself head first into an industrial grade wood chipper. Obviously I refrained from doing this. Instead I met a bunch of my teacher friends for a Hallelujah!!! happy hour where some of us didn't leave until 11 p.m. and I may or may not have roofied myself with a combination of margaritas and extreme happiness bordering on delirium.

It was a l-o-n-g year, people, and I was one lunch duty away from Nutcase Ahoy! The Cloverfield Monster had nothing on the homeroom class assigned to me this year. The little blessings! *cough*

The day before the 5th grade promotion a student whose mother saw fit to name him after a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle accused another boy of "tea bagging" him, which turned out to be nothing more threatening than one fully clothed kid gleefully jumping over the seated body of another fully clothed kid who was trying to watch a movie. How happy I will be not to feel the need to take a Silkwood shower after work every day, which probably happens a lot when you suspect you're fighting a losing battle teaching subject-verb agreement to the next generation of Menendez brothers.

So... it's on to middle school in a completely different part of town. More Ellen Degeneres and less Jerry Springer.  I get to dust off my adolescent psychology notes and try to reach my inner teen. That's the awesome one I wanted to be who could blow everyone's minds with her new crocheted vest,  Love's Baby Soft-scented skin and mad spelling skillz,  but whose "cool" was hamstrung mightily by the unforgiving trifecta of glasses, braces and white knee socks. Plastic framed glasses because the parents of yours truly believed only hippies wore wire framed glasses and wearing panty hose gave one the mistaken impression one was a grown up and--believe me young lady, being grown was apparently something that only happened when your parents decided that it happened. Until that time I was doomed to live out middle school as an AM girl in an FM world. A used plastic poncho in a roomful of London Fog raincoats. The lone can of Cheez Whiz next to the plate of gruyere. A lamer episode of McMillan & Wife when the world is all about Sherlock Holmes (Both Rathbone and Downey Jr. varieties) You get the idea.

So yeah....*whispers* it's summer. I've fantasized about this so many times I'm afraid of talking about it too loudly for fear that it's really just a dream.  A dream where I awaken to find myself explaining for the eleventy hundredth time why wearing red pimp shoes is not part of the dress code and then attempting to sweat a confession out of a kid who is a destined to be a first round draft pick for Leavenworth and who will steal anything that isn't locked up claiming that he "found" it.

 I've been rededicating myself to running sprints and practicing yoga because Spanx can correct only so much when you are pregnant with a 9-month old food baby which I can only blame on my stress diet of candy corn and alcohol.  I am grateful for the available time to give birth get fit.  I've also dived head first into the Jenga tower of books on my bedside table, the best part of which is that no characters in any of these volumes tries to axe anyone else a question and none of them are on the Newberry list.

In unrelated news I'm also cleaning out my bedroom closet in anticipation of the new duds I'll be able to buy with the 4% raise teachers in my district are getting after three years of bupkis and a crapton of excuses as to why insurance and cost of living continue to rise but our paychecks do not. I did the math and if I start buying my bras and underwear at the Dollar Store I'll j-u-s-t be able to spring for some new blouses from the 4th of July discount rack at CrackerBarrel. Or something equally classy.

Try to contain your jealousy.

Competitive Talker

My last gig as a 5th grade teacher at the end of year promotion is this coming Friday and since my feet will be on display I scheduled a pedicure today and reveled in the fact that it would be relatively quiet there, thanks to the post-finals/pre-summer lull. The salon--much like the nearby university-- was completely empty, save for one woman who was deep into her book and getting a final coat of red on her toes.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until I had already secured the chair next to her that I realized the woman was not a stranger. It was Sheila Walton. Seemingly harmless, albeit every-so-slightly-shrill, elementary school teacher by day or evening with a penchant for animal print jackets and chunky jewelry. (An affectation that makes it almost impossible for me not to think of Audra Lindley in her seminal role as Mrs. Roper) Once you were forced into a conversation with Sheila you would shortly realize with fresh horror that she was (and remains) a competitive talker.

You know the type. Competitive talkers can never be wrong about anything, but this is only the tip of the conversational iceberg you're up against. Nothing in life will ever happen to you that is as wonderful or as death-defyingly tragic as whatever has happened to her. At first, conversation with a CT seems normal, but it quickly devolves into a frustrating game of one upmanship where the only means of escape is to look for the nearest window and then jump through it. Or to pray for the sweet and unexpected mercy that only the Seven Horsemen of the Apocalypse can provide. And so it has always been with Sheila.

She started in by asking me if it had been a difficult school year and I said that it had been especially so. This was familiar and dangerous territory as we had talked about our jobs during a wedding reception a couple of years ago where I told her about some of the criminal activity of my young students and where she assured me that the children at her charter school were equally--if not more-- delinquent than those at my public school. Today I regaled her with the Reader's Digest version of a student being pulled out of my class on Tuesday (never to return) because he chose to honor our men and women in uniform over the Memorial Day weekend with nefarious actions resulting in a charge of Felony Breaking and Entering. Also--our school as twice been the target of "friendly fire" of the arson variety, the second time during which current and former students' images were captured on the school's security camera. Sheila responded that kids at her building set their fires in the 1st grade. Because they are so advanced at being bad, I'm guessing.

And it all came rushing back like a bad acid flashback because Sheila Walton is the Michael Phelps of Competitive Talking, minus the all those medals. I could sooner teach my cat to dial 911 than convince Sheila  my day had ever been worse-- or better-- than hers. You have a migraine? Sheila just diagnosed herself (Thanks to the assistance of WebMD) with a brain tumor.

If I know someone with six toes on each foot, she knows someone who has an entire hand growing off of their foot and it has six toes growing off of it.  If I tell her my kid has earned a college scholarship, she would be quick to let me know that her precious dumpling had not only received a free ride to the college of his choice---but had also been crowned the newest ruler of a small principality. Know someone who has been attacked by a shark? Sheila knows a woman who was skin diving while having her period, which attracted the unwanted attentions of an amorous Hammerhead who then forced her to have interspecies sex....and then promptly ate her. You tell her a story about accidentally burning yourself while scrambling some eggs and you will be held captive while she tells you about the time she was so distraught over a bad color job at the salon that she set her own hair aflame with a BIC lighter and half a can of sterno she had left over from an unsuccessfully catered birthday party.

It's exhausting, friends. And because the Apocalypse didn't happen while my feet were soaking and we were unhelpfully located on the first floor of a building, there was nothing for me to do today but just stop talking. Just. Stop. Talking. Feigning a coma would have probably aroused her suspicion, so I focused on the pedicurist's graphic scraping of my leathery feet and begin chatting with her even though her strong Vietnamese accent made it practically impossible to understand what she was saying to me, but I did not mind in the least. NOT IN THE LEAST! The alternative was just too much to endure.Naturally, Sheila Walton is not her real name, but if I did use her real name and the real Sheila ever read this, she would promptly corner me at the store and tell me about the trials of her own personal Competitive Talker who makes mine look like such an amateur! And then one of us would be going home in a body bag.

P.S.- This is the part where you pull a Sheila and tell me about an encounter with a Competitive Talker near you. Ready, Set....Go.

Movin' On Up...(and away from the east side)

I'm not going to lie. Things have been stressful lately. Monday through Friday I masquerade as a weary and battered shuttlecock in a surreal game of academic badminton played between the Reich Chancellery (school district) and many clueless and some crackhead parents who vie for control of everything I --not to mention my esteemed colleagues-- say and do.

Because they fear a lawsuit, downtown authorities want us to handle everything from extreme attendance issues (One young girl has been absent for two months and has not been enrolled anywhere else) to students with 31 zeros (also a true story) at the campus level while ghetto parents throw a clot every time you correct them or their children for anything. Each party desires miraculous academic results without suffering any personal loss of energy on their own part all the while bearing no responsibility for the failure that is almost certainly due to the refusal of the former entity (district) to recognize the essential role of the latter (parents) as the creators and would-be facilitators of what we in education refer to as the formative years. 

Truthfully, it's like being handed 77 5th graders who have been raised on a steady diet of cigarettes, Flaming Hot Cheetos and Mountain Dew and then being critically evaluated on whether or most of them can--after a scant eight months-- qualify for the Olympic trials.

 I'm done.

Seacrest out, my friends. Marva Collins has left the building. I'm waving the white flag of surrender and throwing in the proverbial towel. I'm cashing in my chips.  I'm taking my vintage vinyl copy of Lulu singing "To Sir, With Love" and breaking it in half over my knee. I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm just saying that it can't be done by me. Here. Now.

 Defecting along with me are two upper grade colleagues. Another two have requested transfers but have thus far been unable to find positions elsewhere. The AP is resigning from education altogether. So...it's not just me, just in case you were wondering.

Next year I'll be teaching 8th grade English Literature far away from the Quick Cash kiosks and Section 8 housing that surround my present educational establishment. My new job is closer to home and it's with an age group that--when the bell rings--is capable of walking to lunch, rather than requiring me to slice off part of my own meager mealtime to ferry them there and back to the classroom. I've taught 8th grade before and I've raised 8th graders. Of course, you could say that I've raised 5th graders too and you'd be right, but the ones who grew up in my house knew their own address and phone number and that Clown College and Hair College should never be mistaken for higher education. It had to be said.

To complicate matters, I've spent almost a month of post-work afternoons or evenings seeing my father in the hospital. ER first trip, post-op, ER second trip, post-op, cardiac telemetry, two weeks of a propofol-induced coma in the ICU, and back to cardiac telemetry before....finally...a two week stint in a physical rehab hospital where he is learning to walk again. All the while waiting for good news from a better school and better chances for good news about my dad. News that would suggest that we can resume planning his 80th birthday party again.

My head aches from the semi-permenent grimace I wear and my voice is strident and pedantic. I resemble Nancy Grace minus the bad hair and handcuff necklace she word during the Jodi Arias trial. There has been a notable increase in my wine consumption of late and on more than one occasion I've been tempted to check myself into a remote mountain top ashram under the name "Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman" and let robed monks bring me tea and invoke the Grand Silence.

Instead, I'm going to take a multi-vitamin, drink a big tumbler of ice water, do a handstand, smile at the calendar which shows the remaining eight days of school and rejoice in a second chance to experience joy in my chosen profession.

Happy Memorial Day, y'all.

Free To Be--You and Me. Well...Maybe Just You.

I'm not going to lie. I know exactly how much time has passed since I was here last and believe it or not I don't feel like a total scrub for my neglectful blogginess. Not like I used to when I felt as though I'd let people down because I wasn't writing. Nope. I seemed to have scissored my way through that particular veil of tears and now I'm feeling pretty good. Not exactly Tony Robbins good. More like Liza Minnelli after a couple of dirty martinis and a muscle relaxer. Just like mom. (Hers--not mine, naturally) I'll give you the Reader's Digest version of what I've been up to of late and in no particular order. You can decide if it was worthwhile to jot down:

1) Got myself on the transfer list for my school district.  Sent in my surprisingly impressive resume to the high school of my dreams. Went in for an interview with the principal and then got a call-back for a second interview. I must have done pretty well because one of the department heads had a particular slot in mind for me (Sophomore English) and then just I was confident enough to celebrate with some diabetes-flavored cupcakes and a box of Albertson's finest chardonnay, the would-be retiree whose place I would be taking changed her mind about leaving. I'm not exactly dead man walking just yet. There are still some possibilities in that department. I'm somewhat hopeful.

2) Went to see an acupuncturist about my metabolism which--without telling me--retired and went to live in Florida. The experience itself was a total kick in the pants. Part counseling session, part medical advice and part out-of-body experience. I even cried a little highly recommend it.

3) Spent part of my Spring Break in New York with my husband. Walked the Brooklyn Bridge. Saw some awesome art at the Frick. Spent part of a rainy afternoon at the Strand Bookstore. Sat and read in luxurious silence in the same New York Public Library reading room that Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard were in when they filmed "Breakfast at Tiffany's". Stayed and drank at the Algonquin. Had a liverwurst and onion sandwich and (full disclosure) four beers at McSorley's in the East Village and then accidentally walked into the men's bathroom. Fell back in love with my husband. Not in the bathroom, though.

4) Administered two four-hour major standardized tests on consecutive days last week where my job was to 'actively monitor' for test irregularities. Roughly translated, active monitoring means walking slowly for four hours around a room that has been stripped of any posters or anchor charts or words of any kind. The teacher is completely alone inside his/her head. Walk quickly enough not to freak anyone out but not so slowly that I fall over. In other words...I couldn't sit down. Watched to make sure a student was progressing in his/her answering process, but not actually SEE or mentally register what they are writing down. Notice shit...but not actually recognize what it is. Because that would mean I might have some idea what was on the test. All I can say is that, if presented with the chance, I would rather be kidnapped by Somali pirates than locked in another airless room full of testing 5th graders. Panic and failure stink when mixed. You'll just have to trust me on this.

5) Participated in one too many parent/teacher conferences where I feared one of us was going to leave the room in a body bag. I used to think a burnout was nothing more complicated than the glue-sniffing (but harmless) homeless alcoholic who occasionally enjoys directing traffic down by the zoo. I mean...I might need a judge's ruling on this, but I'm pretty sure I now see a burnout every time I look in the mirror. It's not teaching that weighs me down. It's teaching in the 'hood, which is less about education and more about filling in the cracks for the gaps left by children who had children and then dropped them off at the school's curb at 8:15, which is sad and frustrating because school starts at 8:00.

6) Had a tarot card reading today for the first time in my life. Something tells me that drawing both the devil card and the hangman card is not a good thing. I mean, you should have seen the terrified expression on the medium's face. I've always been a "glass half empty" kind of girl, but the guy looking at my cards made the probability of personal happiness for me seem as likely as obtaining Keyser Soze's cell phone number.

7) Discovered the joyful hilarity of The Honest Toddler blog. Seriously. Do yourself a favor and go there. Now.

8) Toyed with the idea of shutting down this blog. Still considering it. It's not about getting anyone to persuade me against the idea. It's just me. Nothing's definite yet.

9) Went to hear writer Anne Lamott speak. Moved beyond words. So much so that I was inspired to put down a few of my own. Life, despite my whining, is good.

What's new with you?

If You're Happy And You Know It Keep It To Yourself: Christmas Break Is Over

Here's how my train of thought runs these days: I'm having lunch with two friends from yoga when my mind strays for just a second as I wonder how it is that the three of us---all public school teachers--have the time to eat lunch in a restaurant in the middle of the day. For a brief moment I think it's summer until I remember we are all wearing sweaters. It sounds crazy, but sometimes when I'm really tired my brain enjoys a little selective amnesia. Then I realize we're living in the last gasp days of the winter holiday. My eyes fall to my iPad and I remember that there's a Muriel Spark book on there I have to finish for a book group I've not been attending and then that makes me think about the stack of books next to my bed which makes me think of the movie Desk Set--one of my favorite movies where books and the information contained in them feature prominently.

Which then brings my thought process back to the books I haven't read, some of which were gifts that I asked for specifically with the intent to read when suddenly I was all "Crapdammit! I forgot to read!"

And --son of a nutcracker!-- if it isn't too late to have a single lazy day where I sit around my yoga pants happily surrounded by books, mugs of hot tea and back issues of the New York Times and the crossword puzzle. 

A day where it looks like this outside. Dig it, people. This was Christmas Day around these parts.

Christmas was lovely and I ate way more than I should have and suffered from a brief bout of Mashed Potato Cramps, but I'm better now. Tomorrow it's back to my alarm going off at 5:17 and driving in the semi-darkness past the bail bondsmen, Cisco's Taqueria and the Weave Palace to my school where the kids will get an extra day of vacation and the teachers will be asked (and I'm completely serious here) to attend a small seminar on suicide prevention (Student suicide, though they ought to be equally worried about their employees offing themselves.) and then a group activity with markers and paper where teachers must write and perform a rap song detailing the need for academic rigor in the classroom.

Your tax dollars at work, my friends. And then we will begin school on Tuesday having had absolutely no time to finish the lesson planning things that would make us even remotely ready for class. Coming back in after a holiday is a lot like re-entering the earth's atmosphere from space. No matter how prepared I am, I always lose a few heat tiles in the process. And it shows. We'll spend the next few weeks all ramped up on stress from the greatly anticipated yet somehow "surprise" classroom judgement visit from downtown administrators, none of whom have we actually seen, but the threat is potent and carries a kind of Keyser Soze weight to it.

Pardon me while I adjust my victim hat. Anyway. All this to say that the last two weeks have allowed me to think about other jobs I might pursue if things in public education fail to improve.

1) Container Store employee. There's an enormous one opening here and I've heard even part-time workers get benefits. Over the holiday I met a young man who used to be a railroad conductor and he says it's an incredibly happy place to work. Discounts on wrapping paper. Score!

2) Bartender. When life is good, everybody drinks. When life sucks...well...everybody drinks some more. Seems like a win-win prospect to me.

3) Technical writer. Sure, I'd be hammering out mouth watering prose for pamphlets where I direct consumers to "insert Tab A into Tab B", but I wouldn't have to walk any of my co-workers to the bathroom or stand by impassively while their parents curse me when I balk at taking work that is two weeks late. 

4) GED instructor at a prison. At last! People are finally ready and eager to learn. Armed guards standing nearby.

5) Crime scene clean-up. It's a growing market and I would never run out of stuff to blog about. 

What's sad is that teaching school used to top this list back before the inmates started running the psych ward. Unfortunately, there's nothing remotely funny about that. 

I Apologize For Not Apologizing:

One of my yoga teachers recently published a nice piece about body and self-image. In it she attempts to address the kinds of random questions and unhelpful statements one encounters during the average extended relations holiday get-together where food and eating habits typically become a conversation piece, as well as unintentional verbal kindling for all manner of family judgement bonfires. In it she declares that this year she will not apologize for being thin, even though it makes others in her family feel uncomfortable about themselves.

I get it.

Except that now I'm on the other side of that argument. W-A-Y on the other side, to my way of thinking. Call me Ishmael Pudding Face.

I was extremely thin for all of my childhood, adolescence and most of my young adult life and I don't mean relatively thin when propped up next to Biggie Smalls or Snookie from Jersey Shore. I mean truly skinny. A stick figure youth who wore pantyhose under jeans in the hopes of filling them out and a college freshman with a bad Twinkie habit who never gained an ounce. That was then and this is now (Thank you, S.E. Hinton). I get where she's coming from and I sympathize why she feels the need to say what she's saying.

Somewhere along the way after three pregnancies, peri-menopause, a busted thyroid and a life-saving surgery to fix my palm-sized stomach ulcer, I lost my clavicle bones...or what my grandmother used to call "salt cellars", which are those triangular hollows between your neck and shoulder bones. Everything else followed. I can't decide if I have failed my body or my body has failed me. I take vitamins. I do some form of exercise almost every single day including at least three weekly installments of hot yoga and I try really hard to avoid my weekly nightly haj of wine and movie popcorn. However, my size in the last three years remains stubbornly unmoved. I have --according to many people whose sympathies I fail to earn--a normal sized body, but I'm unsure if that means normal in a "what's the big deal" kind of way or in the way that suggests I've gone the way of "Supersize Me" America. 

Either way, I hate me it and so do my pants.

True, I do not run long distances anymore. My hopes to complete a second marathon faded after I celebrated the 10th anniversary of having run the first one--and besides--it's too damn dark when I get home from work. The idea of Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred would only work if she drove her skinny ass to my house every day to scream at me. I have the LOSE IT app on my phone and it restricts me to 1100 calories a day which is only successful when I approach its use with religious zeal while bookending each day between two separate workout sessions and drinking several liters of water. Sure, I get results, but 1) I must be close to a bathroom at all times, 2) My day devolves into little more than working and then working out and 3) I miss chewing.

So how desperate am I these days? I called an acupuncturist yesterday in the hope that having a thousand tiny needles inserted directly into my face will somehow tease my metabolism out of its present coma and I can pass by a mirror without grimacing. Of course, there is probably no way to be this honest about my negative self-image without inviting the assumption that I feel this way about everyone else in my situation. I don't.  I am the supreme ruler of my own body image planet and the restrictions I make for myself should in no way be mistaken for how I think anyone else should live. It's all about me. 

My biggest issue here is with the kind of change--unlike getting older-- that I should be able to fix and can't. It's about wanting to regain the one another part of my past life that I always took for granted. And--okay, I'll admit it. It's about walking into a party or a staff meeting or even the grocery store and feeling like nothing worse than a gently used version of my old self rather than one french fry away from a being a cautionary tale. Is that too much to ask? Please say "no".