Mrs. G the bat killer...or Josephine the Plumber?

Hey, did you know I am a bat killer? LOL Yesterday a little first grade girl named Chloe, came out of the girls bathroom to tell me that there was a bat in there! I said, "A bat?" swinging my arms like I had a bat you use to hit a ball. She said, with big eyes, "No, the kind that flies." And she had several eyewitnesses to confirm her sighting...including a little boy. I asked him how he knew there was a bat in there since being a boy he should not even be in the girls bathroom. He avoided that issue, but he assured me he saw it too. Anyway, I sent them back to their classroom and went to check this out. I was feeling pretty positive that it was not really a bat and was definitely hoping that it wasn't since I didn't want the kids to see their principal acting like a crazy woman running down the hall, because I can't stand bats! However, the little boy was at least concerned about me because he asked me before going back to class what I was going to do if the bat got on me. I told him he didn't want to see that. Ü

Anyway, I went in the bathroom... (let me add an important side note here...a ceiling tile, just inside the door, had been removed that morning because our maintenance man was trying to find the source of a pool of water in the doorway). Now, back to my story...I went inside to look for the "bat" and found that there was a large spiderweb that was covered in dust hanging from the ceiling. It did in fact look like a bat that was flying due to the breeze from the fan they had blowing in an attempt to dry up the water. I smiled and went to get Chloe to have her confirm that what I saw was what she had seen. She cautiously walked into the bathroom and looked up in the ceiling, pointed to it and said, "Yes, see it's a bat!" I assured her it was a spiderweb but she was not convinced. So, I went to get a broom and then proceeded to rake it down and show it to her. And there you have it...I am Mrs. G, the bat slayer! I thought that would put an end to the "bat in the bathroom" rumor, but the rumormill was still rumbling today. Mrs. Simmoms, whose office is right near the bathrooms, was called on to assure a little 4 year old girl that there were indeed no bats in the bathroom!

There seems to always be something going on that has to do with the bathroom. This morning one of my teachers called up to the main office in a panic because a commode in the boys bathroom downstairs was, as the little kindergartener said, "over reflowing." So, Josephine the plummer, alias Mrs. G, grabbed her tools and a plunger and headed down to take care of it. Somehow in my masters program they failed to inform me that these type activities would be part of my duties as a principal. If they had, I might have re-thought the whole process. Nah...not really!
Oh the joys of being a principal who deals with first grade students who can see flying bats in fuzzy spider webs and "over reflowing" toilets. I wonder what tomorrow will hold?