When I arrived at the rink yesterday, I was informed that an elementary school group was coming - and that there wasn't another guard scheduled to help me tame the masses. I hesitantly said that it was alright, while wishing that I hadn't gotten out of bed to come to work.
I was skating around, trying to avoid knocking over the lovely children. An androgynous child stopped me, to ask me if they could make a conga line. I said that they'd have to wait until they were off the ice to do that. A few minutes later, the same kid skated up to me, and asked another question. Both questions were prefaced with "excuse me." I answered again, and skated away.
This continued for a few minutes; one of the questions was whether or not he could wear his coat like a cape. Although I have an opinion about kids keeping their coats, hats and gloves on while skating, there aren't any rules that say they can't let their coat flop around, if they want to put the hood up and wear it like a cape. So, I told him that he could do that if he wanted to, but that he might get cold. After a lap around, he asked if the cape had flown out behind him, when he was skating fast. (I had figured out that it's a boy, somewhere in there.) A few minutes later, his yellow-coated brother skated up, saying, "hey, it's my turn to skate with her!"
The first brother in the blue coat generously skated off, calling, "catch ya later!" I was left with Yellow, who told me that he likes skating and skiing. After asking which he prefers, he said that the thing he really likes doing is reading. But, after telling me that he reads at a high school level and goes through books really fast, he darted off, calling, "catch ya later!"
I was left in relative silence for a couple laps around. (Relative because anyone who's ever skated in a rink full of screaming third graders knows that there is no silence. And if there is, you should be afraid, very afraid.) Blue skated up behind me, "excuse me! Do you want to see how fast I can skate?" Being a sucker for entertainment at an otherwise boring job, I readily agreed to see the speed demon in action.
Not long after, though, Yellow came along, "hey! It's my turn!" So, he skated alongside me for a lap or two, chattering about the books he had been reading. But, it wasn't long before Blue came back, ready to tell me that he had "perfected" his jump. Oh dear. This spurred Yellow into telling me that he had perfected a skiing slope in one day. "No, wait," he said, "I meant one time. I perfected it the first time I did it!"
In an effort to beat his brother, Blue looked at me with a conspiring grin and said, "you know what? We do some crazy things sometimes. One time, me and [Yellow] and one of our cousins ran around our house. Naked. We had all taken a bath and we were all wet, and we made a mess."
Oh my. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to respond to this. I'm not an expert when it comes to dealing with children, but I certainly didn't want to encourage this kind of disclosure; I'm just a rink guard, after all! Thankfully, he skated off before I had a chance to really respond, aside from an, "oh. Well, that does sound crazy."
They continued taking turns skating with me, chatting about their skating and after school program. Aside from the naked comment, they were pretty normal little boys. Yellow wanted to hold my hand, but I told him he couldn't do that; if he needed to keep his balance, he could grab my arm. At one point, while Yellow was telling me about his adventures while skiing, Blue came up and told me that he had hurt his shoulder. I asked what had happened, and he told me that he thought he heard it pop.
Yellow interjected immediately, telling him that it was probably dislocated but not to worry - dislocated shoulders can be fixed. I asked him if his shoulder hurt, he said no. So, I asked him if he could hold his arm straight out, from shoulder height. He showed me that he could do that easily. So, I asked him if he could move his arm in a complete rotation. That was no problem, either. So, I told him that his shoulder is probably okay.
A few minutes later, Blue tried to jump the blue line. While he may have "perfected" his jumps, I think he needs a bit of work on his landings. He landed on his knees, and was sure that he busted them. He was crying (although I'm pretty sure he was faking...), so I asked if it felt like he could move them. He said he wasn't sure, so I took him in, to check it out. While walking - on his own accord - he told me that he was pretty sure he'd broken at least one of his legs, but he didn't feel like he was going to throw up. When I got him to the bench, and asked if I could see his knee, he pushed his pant leg up to find a red (but otherwise okay) knee. I couldn't help but chuckle when he said, "at least my kneecap is still intact."
He might have a bump today, but I bet he's otherwise alright. I left him with ice, and a teacher watching. A while later, Yellow came back out, and waved. When he skated up to me, I asked him how [Blue] was doing. He said that he was alright, but he wasn't going to come out on the ice again. Then he complimented my skating, saying how I must not use too much extra energy, since I barely move my legs and arms.
At his next interjection, Yellow asked me how old I am. I told him, and he replied, "oh, that's not too bad." He sounded a bit disappointed, but went on to say, "I like girls." Before I got a chance to say anything, he went on to say, "I'm looking for girls to be my friends. I want to find some 15 or 16 year old girls to be friends with me."
Oh my. I told him that he might like to try being friends with kids that are a bit closer to his age, since I wasn't sure how else to respond to this declaration. At that, though, he said, "oh, I love to go grocery shopping. I like oohing and ahhing over all of the women."
Had he stopped there, I would've been okay, still. I could've shaken my head and thought to myself, boys. Instead, he continued, saying, "I like the women with the big breasts, to feed me."
Whoa. What?! You're 8 years old. I'm not a child psychologist, but really? He then went on to tell me how he had been "good" at nursing, and that [Blue] had needed to be fed with a bottle. Thankfully, I was saved from having to respond to this, since a teacher came and snatched him away; the bus was waiting. At that moment, I was so incredibly happy that I'm not an elementary (or middle, or high) school teacher.
Post a Comment