Overheard From The Hallway, Part 1

Wednesday nights my kids have CCD, which stands for Confraternal Christian Doctrine and is otherwise known as Religious Education and further otherwise known as the classes that you have to take before you can make your sacraments up to Confirmation in the Catholic church.  As far as I'm concerned, it is also what makes my Wednesday nights a logistical nightmare and therefore an acronym often taken in vain, but maybe that's just me.  The powers that be have the sense to stash me in the vicinity of the smallest children for my hall-monitoring duties, which is very wise of them.  All I have to do is think about the bishops who are spending millions on their palatial dwellings while shuffling pedophile priests like decks of cards in their spare time and it's just as well that I am not anywhere near kids who might be old enough to register and process my honest opinion on either subject, should they happen to hear it at any point.

Anyway, my seat in the hall (from which I monitor the to-ings and fro-ings of wayward parents and chaperone small fry on bathroom trips) happens to be directly outside the first grade classroom in which Petunia and a number of other small fry are taught by a truly remarkable woman.  She is a pharmacist by training, but missed her calling as a teacher: I admit freely that I have borrowed many of her techniques for handling little ones for use in my basketball coaching and that the kids are much better off for it.  The other benefit to me of my seat location is that I can hear what goes on in said first grade classroom, and some of the conversational exchanges between students and teacher are absolutely--and unintentionally--hilarious.

I have heard one of the Sacraments called (in all seriousness, on two different occasions) both the "annoying of the sick" and "the annoying of the orange."  (If you are not familiar with the TV show to which the latter is referring, I envy you deeply.)  Another child, on a third occasion, asked if the tablets upon which Moses received the Ten Commandments were iPads.  And on the subject of the Ten Commandments, I bring you the highlight from this evening:

Teacher: "Who can name one of the Ten Commandments for me?"
Student: "Don't bring weapons to the airport."

Love it.  Absolutely love it.