"Make sure you hit him with a frying pan of hot grits"

In lieu of writing anything timely, as I'm feeling the need to spend more of my hours of life doing things other than sitting in front of the computer screen, today I'll be posting a collection of student quotes collected over the past weeks. Enjoy.

One of my kids, who is brilliantly dead pan, raises his hand. The class is working independently, so I go over to answer his question. Mr. Archey is my co-teaching partner. We are not dating, but our students like to pretend/assume that we are. So my kid calls me over, waits a beat, and with no introduction asks:

"So am I invited to you and Mr. Archey's wedding? I'm just asking because I've got to get my suit, and get the date on my calendar. And also, I need to know what are the colors? And can I see some swatches?"

I laugh, and walk away to answer the question of a child who is actually interested in learning about the differences between criminal and civil trials. Maybe five minutes go by, and my student raises his hand again. So, I walk over to him...

"What's your question?"

"Ms. Andersen. When you and Mr. Archey get married, which I know you will, and when you want to divorce him, cause he's cheating on you, which I know he will, and you divorce him, would that be civil law?"

"Yes! It would! Very good!"

"Ok, just make sure you hit him with a frying pan of hot grits."

And, in the continuing series of kids making strange comments about my physical appearance:

"Man Ms. Andersen, lookit those big ol' eyes. I should call those your, hm. Green eyes...green eggs and ham eyes!"

Or about the food I eat:

[As I'm eating granola from a ziploc bag.]

"What are you eating, Ms. Andersen?"

"Granola."

"It look like bird food. Bird seed. You be eating like a bird."

"It's granola. Lots of people eat granola."

"Yeah, but you always eat like a bird. I bet when you lie down at home you turn into an owl."

One of my favorite kids made this observation about how white and black people buy groceries:

"White people be buying, like...okay. Say you see some plums in the grocery, and we got some over here for like 69 cents, and then we got some other plums over here, look exactly the same, but they like, $1. 25. Black people, we get the 69 cent ones, cause they the same damn plums. But you be like, no no, I want these ones over here, they look better! White people buy stuff like, they be the exact same thing, but they got some nice packaging on there, and so they be like, oh, these look nice, when like, the packaging cost more than the food."

And another of my favorite kids walked into class one Tuesday after being absent on Monday:

Me: Kevin! Where were you yesterday?

Kevin [not his name, of course]: At your house.

Me: Really. What were you doing at my house?

Kevin: Eating your cereal.

Me: So that's why my Rice Chex were gone this morning?

Kevin: Yep, I ate 'em all.

And from the same student...

Kevin: You’ve been to Europe?

Me: Yep, I went in college.

Kevin: You been to France? I heard they got people being kidnapped all over the place there.

Me: What? Um, yes I’ve been to France but I don’t know about the kidnapping.

Kevin: You didn’t get kidnapped?

Me: No.

Kevin: Well, Ms. Andersen, you ever get kidnapped over there, I want you to call me. You hear? You call me before you call the police. They can’t be doing that to Molly. I be over there and I get you outta there. Me before the police, alright? I got you, Ms. Andersen.