It sucks to work for the Y-M-C-A

I have been really fortunate that such an awesome group of people have found my diary, because they have made me laugh my ass off, and lately, I have needed that more than ever.

So, to everyone who has entertained me via phone, email and instant message, thank you. More than you know.

Speaking of diary buddies, Cookie is a total sicko. But she and her diary kick ass, so go read it.

---

I used to work in childcare for a certain Christian Association for Young Men. I loved this job. Correction: I loved the kids, I hated the people I worked with. I even considered being a teacher (jesus...could you imagine?) for a while, but never pursued it. I don't ever want to shoot a kid out of my own vagina, but I love other peoples' kids (mostly).

When I started there, I had never worked with kids before. I just really needed a job, and Kay worked there, and they were under-staffed.

The way I type is the way I talk. I didn't know how to talk to a bunch of kids. It didn't occur to me that I should talk to them differently than I did to adults. So I didn't. And, at first, this was a little jarring, mostly for the parents. The kids, like most kids, loved me immediately.

I bonded with the parents of the kids in my group. I talked to them in detail about shit their kids were doing, and how they needed to get off their fucking yuppie asses at home and do something so their kid didn't think it was ok to act like an asshole when he/she was in my care. A few of them were put out, but ultimately, it ended in their kid being a lot less of a dickhead all the time, so it worked out nicely.

One kid in particular, Brian, was a little jackass. Like the kind of kid you just hate. No matter what, he wasn't happy. He hated me. He hated having to go to daycare (which I can't say I blame him). He hated the other people that worked there. He hated the food we served for snack. He hated EVERYTHING. Everyday I would drive home, smoking ten cigarettes at a time, and ready to pull my hair out from the stress of this kid. I couldn't control him. His parents didn't want to try and control him.

One day I sat the parents down, and told them that we needed to work together to get their kid to work on his anger, and find something that he liked, and to do it like crazy, to keep him occupied and happy.

We figured out he liked cards. So we started playing cards everyday. Go fish, crazy 8's, bullshit (the kids especially liked this one - I wonder why), slap jack, speed, it didn't matter. Whatever kept him calm and quiet.

The kids got bored of those games, so I decided the only logical thing to do with a group of bored eight year olds is teach them poker and black jack.

Hey, there's math involved. It's educational.

So, everyday, after school, while the other groups were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, my group sat at the table, with checkers as chips, and gambled. Other parents bitched about it, but none of mine did. You know why? Because their kids weren't being shitheads all the time anymore. I learned so much about kids during this time. Actually, you could learn a lot about dealing with adults working in daycare. Dealing with stupid grown-ups is not any different from dealing with some punkass little kid.

Except you can punch the grown-up.

During the summer, every week we would take a field trip. Dodger games were a popular one. On one trip, I couldn't go, so I thought it would be funny to make a sign for the kids to hold up whenever Mike Piazza was at bat that said "Mike call me" with my phone number on it. All the kids thought this was hilarious, and they were all over it. They only got to hold it up a couple of times, because the jerks in charge didn't think it was "funny or appropriate" for the kids to be doing it.

When we would go to the movies, we would all speak a weird made-up language and act like tourists. It drove the theater people nuts, because they could never understand us, and usually one of the kids would pretend to start crying when someone didn't know what they were saying. Brian always had his shirt pulled up on his head acting like The Great Cornholio (if you don't know what that is, you suck), running around in circles asking the manager for "tp for my bunghole!"

That kid was such a little evil genius.

At this point, you may all be scoffing at my leadership skills, and letting the kids behave in a way they shouldn't. Well, fuck that. We had fun everyday. We laughed all the time, and we all liked each other. My kids got along and stayed out of trouble. They were happy. They did well in school.

The bond that I developed with those kids was strong. I had the same group of kids all through my time there. They were six when I started, and eleven when I left. Leaving that job was incredibly hard.

I miss those punkass kids. I still keep in touch with a few of them, and (go figure) I still talk to Brian and his family on a regular basis.

---

I bought the new Coldplay record today. It's excellent (but I already knew it would be).

I also downloaded an assload of Skatalites and Nikka Costa.

Nikka Costa kicks ass. Britney and Hilary and Ashley and Lindsey should lick the bottom of her shoes and hope to get a little bit of her talent.

That's all.