This last segment has been a long time coming. I have been debating whether it's a tale worth telling, because it involves developmentally delayed children. So I just want to make it clear right now that the events in this story are true, and that my reactions of disgust are related solely to the presence of fecal matter and do not reflect my feelings towards the children in question. I'm not making fun of the kids here, okay, people? The mockery lies in my seeming inability to avoid other people's poop in my various jobs. So don't get all up on my case that I'm making fun of anyone's disability, because I'm not.
If you haven't read Parts 1 and 2, or you just need a refresher, go here and here.
As you will recall, my first job was just all-around awful. The sloppy chocolate icing on the shame cake was cleaning a mess of feces off the wall and floor using plastic grocery bags for hand protection. A couple jobs and three summers later, I found myself working at an overpriced Jersey Shore restaurant where I had a very close encounter with misplaced bowel movements. By then, I had grown a proverbial pair and weaseled out of the cleanup.
Fast forward another couple years and I had graduated from college with an utterly useless English degree. I got a job in a high school library, which was good in a lot of ways and terrible in almost as many. I liked my job-related tasks. I did not like having students call me a bitch or sexually harass me. I especially didn't like when the kid who spent a year in juvie for beating the crap out of his mother used to say my name the way a child molester would say "Hey little girl, wanna come in my van for some candy". If it was any other kid, I would have verbally shamed him and sent him on his way, but this kid was terrifying.
But I digress. The wonderful thing about this job was that I was finally confident that I would not ever have to touch someone else's poop again. At least not in a work-related capacity. What I do on the weekends is private, and we made a pact not to ever take pictures or disclose our real names, so there's no way that's ever going to end up on the internet oh god I've said too much already.
The fecal-free workplace was a welcome change for me, but I knew it wasn't a sustainable way to live. Too much stress and frustration in a high school. Not my bag. After two years, I left the job so I could go to grad school full-time to complete my Master's degree in Library Science. All I wanted to do was work in a nice, quiet, teenager-free, poop-free space filled with books. Is that so much to ask?
Thus far, it seems that yes, that is too much to ask. But my employment woes are no secret to most of you. At the time, I realized that I needed some form of flexible, "easy" employment, so I applied to substitute teach in a "semi-urban" K-12 school district a couple towns up the road (and "up the road" kind of means closer to Camden, which pretty much everyone knows is a horrible place thanks to its designation in past years as the most dangerous city in the country, surpassing even Compton).
I spent my first day subbing for 2nd grade at the elementary school in the nicer part of town. It was a cakewalk. All these little cherubs were polite and obedient and gave me hugs (which was not that awesome, because children are crawling with germs, but at least they liked me) and told me I was pretty. It was the easiest $80 I've ever made, except for that time I blacked out while hooking, and woke up next to a pile of sweaty $1's. I don't remember a thing. Probably because it didn't actually happen, but every once in a while I like to pretend I'm "hard" and have "street cred."
Reality is a harsh mistress, though. The next time I was called to work, they sent me to another 2nd grade class at the elementary school across the street from the subsidized housing apartments. What a difference socio-economic status makes! I'm not going to fault anyone for being poor, and I realize that there are bratty children at every rung on the socio-economic ladder. But these children were all kinds of bat-shit crazy, through no fault of their own. There were maybe three nice kids who obviously had attentive parents. The rest of the kids were probably born with crack in their systems and no self control whatsoever. I almost lost my voice from screaming all day just to make myself heard over the din of ADHD crack babies whining and calling each other words I never heard until high school.
Each time my phone rang at 6 in the morning, I would cringe. "Fuck" would often be my first word of the day on these occasions. Almost without fail, I would be asked to sub at the ghetto elementary school. Some days were better than others. Fourth grade was manageable. Kindergarten was very...soggy. I lost track of the number of kids who peed their pants that day. Fortunately the teacher's aide took care of the pants-changing and wet-underwear-bagging. But still. You're five years old. Have some self-respect.
I quickly learned that the non-classroom teachers had the best gigs. Art, gym, computers, music...they had the easiest schedules with the most prep time. They also didn't have to endure any particular group of students for more than 45 minutes at a time. So when I reported to the ghetto school to sub for the music teacher, I was ecstatic. All I had to do was show a video to a few classes, spend an hour eating lunch and driving to another elementary school, show the same video two more times, and then I could go home early. This assignment had all the makings of the Best Day Ever.
I had just settled into the classroom and set to work relearning how to use a VCR so I could rewind the video I had to show to the first class. My endorphins were surging, and I was mentally preparing myself for a great day, when the principal poked her head in the doorway. "We need to reassign you. Can you go down the hall and sub for the aide in the Preschool Disabled classroom?"
Oh. My. God. It was happening again. Just like the time old Jeanie commanded me to clean the shit off the wall in the bathroom, my vocal cords were paralyzed. "Buh. Uh. Sure?" Katie, you are a coward. Why did you agree to that? I thought as I slunk down the hall to a place I feared more than clowns and bears and people staring at me. I feared it more than being stared at by a clown riding a bear. I was on the verge of vomiting. I was so disoriented by the abrupt and unpleasant shift that had just been foisted upon my day.
I'm not good with kids. Kindergarten was difficult enough. I could have used a translator to help me understand kidspeak, and those children were developmentally normal, for the most part. How on earth would I, the person who had never babysat, never changed a diaper, never interacted with children, function in a room full of three and four year old kids who have the bodies of toddlers and the minds of babies? I guess I wasn't even worried for myself so much as I was afraid of how my ineptitude would affect the kids. How am I supposed to understand what they want or need? How am I supposed to act around them? Regular kids are mysterious and difficult as it is, but this was just a completely different universe of uncertainty.
It was heartbreaking. These kids had autism and cerebral palsy and all sorts of difficulties. I can't even imagine what that is like for their parents. Just looking at these kids forced you to imagine how much of a struggle the rest of their lives are going to be. It was just sad. The entire day was one giant Debbie Downer. It didn't help that most of the kids cried the whole day and threw hissy fits over the most inane things. It was just awful and sad. My normal reaction to behavior like that from average kids would be anger and impatience, but with these kids, you just wanted to hug them or give them a cookie or something. You just felt BAD. It wasn't a feeling of pity, it was more a sense of injustice that life is going to be a lot harder for these kids than it will be for average kids.
It wasn't until mid-morning that I understood why I had been reassigned. The other aide and I took a group of four of the higher-functioning kids to the bathroom for a potty break. On the way there, she told me the sub caller had originally assigned an old man to the Preschool Disabled room, and when he showed up they realized he would be useless because it would be inappropriate for him to touch the kids. I didn't realize that would even be an issue until she indicated that we had to go into the bathroom with them and help them undo their pants before they went into the stalls. I felt a little creepy about this, but I guess I shouldn't have, because "I'm a woman" and it's obviously okay for me to unbutton a little boy's pants but not for a man to unbutton a little girl's pants. If not for this hideous and unfair double standard, I would have been living it up on easy street, showing videos about walking, talking trumpets and flutes while some crusty old man was helping three year olds pull down their pants. Ain't that a b'.
At 11:30, the first group of children went home, and we had a half-hour respite before the afternoon onslaught. One child remained in the classroom with the teacher, the other aid, and me. He was a little boy with autism who had a completely normal twin brother. His parents were going through a messy divorce, and they kept him in preschool for the whole day so he'd be out of the way. Oh. My. God. Like I said before, absolutely heartbreaking.
The kid could almost manage to feed himself, but the teacher had to help him a great deal. After he ate a small portion of his lunch, he proceeded to run to the other side of the room, fling himself on the carpet, and start flailing his arms and legs and moaning. It was disturbing, but according to the teacher, he did it all the time. So we let him be and ate our lunches.
Then we noticed pungent odor coming from the child's direction. The teacher gave the other aide a knowing glance, eyebrows raised. "You think he pooped?" "Yep. Come on, Katie, give me a hand with this."
For the second time that day, I was speechless. I couldn't imagine what "giving her a hand" would entail. Does it take more than one person to clean the poop off this kid? Is there cause for concern? Should I put on a hazmat suit? I'm pretty sure I was shaking at this point, from fear, embarrassment, and nausea because by then, the poop smell was nearly asphyxiating me. Did this kid eat an entire bag of garbage for breakfast?
As it turned out, "giving a hand" meant grabbing one of the kid's arms and half-dragging, half-carrying him between us as he protested, kicking and screaming, all the way to the bathroom. What happened next was nothing short of a miracle of compassion. I don't know if the woman really didn't need anything more from me or if I looked like I was so close to vomiting that she wanted me to leave lest she have two messes to clean up. But once we got into the bathroom, she turned to me and said, in the most angelic voice you can imagine, "I can take it from here."
So I staggered back to the classroom and managed to make it through the rest of the day. On my way home, I stopped for coffee and a quick back-alley hysterectomy.
That is horrifying! Poor kids and poor you.
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