School Yard Pranks

I work with a great team. Not only are they supportive, but they are FUN. We spend much of our planning time laughing ourselves to tears over silly little things that make no sense to anyone else. I won't go into detail (because you just wouldn't get it), but we have a schoolwide reputation for being silly and rambunctious. (We also have a reputation for being cooperative and hard-working.) So, when I ended up the butt end of a practical joke yesterday, I was surprised, but not SURPRISED.

My team members refer to me as "the organized one". This is their nice way of saying that I am a little bit compulsive and a little bit obsessive. But they know that if they can't locate their own copy of something, chances are that I can get my hands on mine in under a minute. My undiagnosed OCD often presents itself in the form of lists and labels. Everything in my room has a place and that place is often labeled. This is a carry-over from when I was teaching preschoolers with autism and we labeled things so they could help clean up. My team-mates have commented several times about my labels and my "organization" already this year. Yesterday, returning to my room after lunch, I found that everything on my nicely organized desk had been labeled for me. Sticky notes all over the place read, "Highlighters", "Pens", "Overhead", "Flag", "Desk", "Calculator", and "Files". My "Water Bottle" was labeled, and so was the "Water Bottle Cap" that had been sitting next to it. I almost fell over I was laughing so hard. As I picked up my kids in their lines, the rest of the team tried to look innocent and failed. After school, we all had a good laugh and I thought it was over.

Oh, no. How could I be so silly? I was the very last person to leave from my wing (as usual). As I bent down to get my bag-o'-stuff from under my desk, I read the word "Purse". I giggled to myself and shook my head. In the parking lot I was faced with the label "Car". I pulled the label off the window, put it on the steering wheel, and laughed my way home.

The best part of the whole thing is the feeling of comradary and teamwork that we have. My first thought at seeing those labels was "They really like me!". Silly as that sounds ("D" asked me, "Did you think we DIDN'T like you?"), it is true. Seeing the time and effort they put into making me laugh highlighted the fact that I am an accepted and important part of this group. These are not just my co-workers, they are my friends. Now it is my turn to pass on the warm fuzzies.