Eavesdropping

On the bus for the field trip on Tuesday, several girls accused me of being an eavesdropper after they had been talking about who likes who and which boy they were gonna marry someday. I denied eavesdropping on them, but admitted it was part of my job. Teachers know everything about everyone in their classroom, don't they? At least that's what we want the kids to think.

When I'm using wi-fi at certain places, I find myself eavesdropping quite a bit. Like today, at Barnes and Noble, a grandfather thought his granddaughter was a lot older than she was. He was feeding her a sugar cookie that was basically the size of her small head and telling her they could bake some of their own come Christmastime. It was sweet and all, but as far as I could tell the girl couldn't even walk on her own yet.

The milk-delivery man was pretty cranky this morning because he had to take the milk crates that some other guy left behind. The cafe workers can't stop talking about it like it was the most exciting thing that has happened in weeks. It probably is. They were expecting a big rush of parents after the Halloween story time, but I don't think it ever happened. So now they have to keep talking about the milk delivery man and how they made too many cookies. The new worker just finished her shift, and the coworkers congratulated her on a good morning.

The girl behind me is working on spinning her resume so that she can land a job at PetSmart. She wants to work with animals in the future. I didn't think PetSmart really needed impressive resumes, but I guess in this economy it can't hurt. Her boyfriend is helping whenever she gets stuck, but I'm not convinced she wants the help. He spends the rest of his time surprising (or annoying?) her with little-known Mount Everest trivia. Can you believe someone climbed it in 1953? Without oxygen? And take a guess how old the oldest tree on the mountain is.

A little boy just walked over next to them, pulled a book off the shelf, and excitedly read it's title for the entire store to hear: "MAGIC FOR DUMMIES!" Man was he excited. I loved that age where I wanted to be into magic but soon realized it took too much dexterity and too much deception for me to muster.

Then there's the goofy kid in the corner who's been here almost four hours and is probably only halfway done with his assignment for grad class, mostly because he's been distracted by reading excerpts of Donald Miller's new book, trying to find the CDs he's been wanting in the music section, and being nosy and blogging about it. He's getting hungry, but can't decide if he should purchase lunch here or elsewhere.

This is the second time I've written about myself in the third person recently, and when I stop to think about it, it kind of freaks me out. I guess I shouldn't get in the habit of it.