>Director: Now get a close-up of the lunch bag.
Assistant: You must be kidding. A brown bag lunch? That’s not exactly dramatic TV.
Director: It’s not just any brown bag lunch. Daisy usually takes a lunch with reusable containers, flatware, and cloth napkins. Today she can’t because she’s going on a field trip. She’s compensating by re-using a bag from Atlanta Bread. The sandwich is peanut butter and homemade apple butter. The apple is from the farmers’ market. Leave the pretzels out; they have no meaningful back story.
Assistant: So?
Director: Back story, kid, back story. Gotta have it.
Assistant: I’m just glad the day’s over.
Me: YOU’RE glad it’s over? You only had to watch!!

I arrived at school early (as usual), without coffee (not usual), because I was headed out to a full-day class/training session. The district had acquired funding for teacher training, and I jumped at the chance to sign up. It meant writing sub plans for class days (extra work and worry) but meant I didn’t have to arrange for quite as much after-school care for Amigo. The trade-off was worthwhile. So…back to the story.
Early arrival at school: good. No coffee: not so good, but okay. My plan was to drive through Jo to Go between school and class. A 16 oz. hazelnut was calling my name.
Checked my mailbox in the office: not so good. Maintenance guy was mopping the office floor, and I slid. No injury, but a tense back from the near fall.
At my desk, finished and printed sub plans, gathered big monitor and hooked it up for science video: good. Ready in advance of sub: good. Time to get a few other things done.
Breakfast bell rang: sub hadn’t arrived yet. Not good.
Called office: am I on the subfinder list? Yes: Good. Anyone we know? No: not so good. Hope it’s not a rookie. The minute the sub arrived, I planned to hightail it out for coffee and class.
Sub arrived with about 8 minutes to spare: not good. I ran down to the office with a few papers, gave sub a chance to skim plans. On the way up, I confirmed volunteer arrangements with regarding a high-needs student: good.
RING!! Kids came in shouting “Eric and Derek are fighting!” Need you ask? Bad. I separated the bully and victim: good. But bad, too; another delay. I needed to write this up for the principal. Bullying doesn’t wait; this incident needed immediate follow-up.
Finally, I was off – but late. No time to stop for coffee.

Director: So now that you’re in class, the day starts. We’ll get the camera set up and the microphone on you.
Me: Starts? I already had a day’s worth of drama. Did you miss it?!
Assistant: Daisy, you look kinda wired. I don’t think you really need coffee. Uh, Daisy?
Me: (pounding head on table)

To cover everything that happened between the start of my training class (sans coffee) and the end of evening tasks (making my lunch for morning), it would take another episode of the Daisy Reality Show. Stay tuned!! Or not – this bumbling assistant might not be so far off. The class itself, while a fascinating piece of teacher training, would make rather dull TV. And that, my friends, is good.