My Sheep Story

(To get the full effect of this story, you need to make the animal noises. Better yet, read this with friends, while one of you plays me and others play everyone else.)

Let's go back to second grade for a bit. (A chorus of "No way!"s fills the air.) Our beloved Dolphin Terrace, still practically brand new, was already bursting at the seams and had gained portable buildings to handle overflow. Second graders got the portables that year. Each portable had indoor plumbing (I guess they were semi-portable or something) complete with a bathroom. In our class, if the bathroom was occupied, you wrote your name on a sheet of paper on the bathroom door. After you used the bathroom, you crossed your name out, and the next person on the list went in, locking the door as the bathroom was zoned for single occupancy only.

One Monday morning I really needed to go, but there were several names on the list. By the time I got in, I was going to be a while. Naturally, being me, hating to waste time, I started daydreaming. The day before in Sunday School we had learned about a shepherd boy named David, taking care of his sheep, defending them against all comers, such as lions and bears. (Possibly Injuns and rustlers as well, but they'd never been mentioned. Still, I'd seen enough movies to know you had to watch out for these tricky types.)

So while I was waiting to see how things came out, I was being David, guarding the sheep, herding them up the Chisholm trail, protecting them from lions, bears, coyotes, whatever (no Injuns or rustlers that day). As far as I can recall, Goliath never showd up, either.

Outside, or rather inside the classroom, the teacher eventually noticed a disturbance. This mainly took the form of laughter in the corner nearest the bathroom. She spoke sternly, and the group managed to mostly scale back to snickers and giggles. Above those, the whole class plainly heard, "Baaaa! Baaaaa!" with an occasional wild animal growl. Bedlam ensued. I later heard that one girl literally fell out of her chair she was laughing so hard.

Meanwhile, David, oblivious to second grade, was happily taking care of the sheep when a sudden pounding, a deranged thunder, shook him from his reveries. As he stared, perplexed, at a white ceramic basin in front of him, wondering where he was, a voice (not the voice of God, but the next thing to it) called, "Miles! Miles! Are you all right in there?"

Huh? Oh. yeah. Of course! " Yes, ma'am! Be out in a little while!"

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Well, hurry up!"

"Yes, ma'am!"

Uh oh.

As quickly as possible I finished my business. I unlocked the door, opened it, and was nearly knocked down by gale force winds of laughter from my 23 classmates. [1] I would have closed the door and locked myself in but the face of the Teacher who sits at the right hand of the One who sits at the right hand of the Father made it clear I'd best get to my desk PRONTO.

The laughter refused to subside for somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes despite the best efforts of our (truly wonderful) teacher. Even after order was restored, every few minutes, a "Baaaa" would float gently from a random part of the room and everyone would lose it again. By mid afternoon, I think we finally went 10 minutes with no laughter, when the teacher got a funny look on her face, and went, "Baaaaa...." I think I even laughed at that point.

That day was one of the longest years of my entire life.


[1] 4 rows of 6 chairs... Amazing what a geek will remember.