Probably, one of the biggest challenges Roger faces being a First Grade Teacher isn't the students. It's being a member of a large group of co-workers who are almost 100% female (the gym teacher doesn't count here, because he gets to hide out in the gym and do manly sports stuff all day).


As an early elementary school educator, Roger is called upon to participate in a whole bunch of activities that most people (and I'm talking most MALES here) would categorize as strictly female activities. Some even slop over into the *gasp* "girly" variety.

Not a week goes by at school without some type of "social" event. This could be anything from a faculty theme meal (tomorrow's theme is Baked Potato Lunch) or a wedding or baby shower. I remember the time, early in his teaching career, when Roger was trying to figure out the whys and whatfors of all the celebrations. He looked me straight in the eye with a puzzled look on his face and asked me if all the parties and get togethers was a "female thing".

Bless His Heart...it must HURT to be so clueless. Of COURSE it's a female thing. It's what women do best, take something and make an EVENT out of it. We can even make an event out of NOTHING if we have to, and sometimes, apparently we DO!

As women, we are nurturers, and we understand how important it is to celebrate when life is good and even more important to celebrate when life isn't quite as good. It's a gift we give willingly to each other, our children, and any and all poor unsuspecting males who happen to be in our path - like Roger.

That's why I always encourage Roger to participate in all the activities and festivities, no matter how "girly" they might seem. I'm proud to say he listens to me, most of the time, as the above pictures will tell you.

These are pictures of Roger taking part in two of Floyd Elementary's Red Ribbon Week Festivities - Crazy Sunglasses Day and Wild Hair Day.

I'd like to go on record as saying that he WOULD have participated in PAJAMA DAY, but he "forgot" to tell me about it. Uh huh.....like we believe THAT one.

For various reasons, we've been making more trips to the vet's office, lately.

Let's see, there's Dudley's neurotic licking, which results in big, raw wounds that have to be doctored with some type of super medicine which scares me to death. I have no idea what it's made of. All I know is, I have to wear gloves to apply it and it SAYS SO RIGHT ON THE LABEL, so I'm guessing they're not kidding. This was vet visit number one and two. Of course, we had to go back for a $30.00 re-check...you don't think they're gonna let us get by with just ONE visit, do you? Good news is, Dudley got PROZAC - bad news is - it DOESN'T WORK (maybe I'm supposed to be the one taking it? I offered, but the vet said no.)

A couple of weeks ago, Layla, the big, strong dog, who is bred to sit quietly, enduring sub-freezing weather until she receives the command to jump into ice cold waters and retrieve all manner of water fowl, stepped in a hole and sprained her foot. This would be vet visit number three.

Vet visit number four was scheduled as a well-visit for Layla with just a routine exam and shots...except she started REFUSING to jump up on anything. The couch, the bed, the car for our daily Sonic rides. You could tell she WANTED to, she'd approach the target, but she'd stall and whine and look at us with a really sad expression. She didn't even want us to help her and she'd run from us when we tried to hoist her ample self up.

Of course, most women would see that as a natural reaction. All women know that if anyone (and I'm talking males here) ever actually tries to LIFT us, the jig's up and we can no longer be coy about how much we weigh (which is always a lot more than they THINK we do).

Luckily (?) Layla's gimpiness happened the weekend before her Monday appointment, so Roger and I spent the weekend preparing ourselves for what might happen at the vet's office.

I explained to Roger that they might want to do x-rays and Layla would have to be sedated, which meant we might have to leave her overnight. One thing led to another and we found ourselves discussing the possibility that at the young age of 4 years old, Layla might be experiencing some early joint problems that would make it necessary for her to adjust her lifestyle and activities.

Daily walks might be a thing of the past and jumping up and down from the bed, even with her helpful step stool, might be too hard on her. We even talked about taking a huge financial hit, trading in our 2 year old SUV and buying something closer to the ground so she wouldn't have to jump, but could just step in and out.

Now, let me just stop here and say this should make perfectly clear to you, how very much Roger loves Layla. Usually, I'M the one who goes insane over things like this. I don't just go overboard, I HYSTERICALLY FLING MYSELF OVERBOARD, wholeheartedly. Roger, he's the calm, reasonable one. The one who keeps me grounded and reins me in when I start to run amok. Unfortunately, in this instance, he was just as amok as I was and we were in big trouble. We even went so far as to tell Alex that he had to give us HIS car and he could just drive ours. Uh huh...we were willing to drive a used (and I mean used HARD) six year old car and PAY for our 22 year old son to drive our almost brand new Santa Fe. I told you we were out of control.

Fortunately, none of that was necessary. We took Layla to her vet appointment and, when we walked in, a miracle happened. Layla, who, minutes before, had been laying around at death's door, walked into the vet and saw two of her very favorite things on Earth....a PUPPY and a FOUR YEAR OLD BOY! The retail stores are right!! Christmas DOES come before HALLOWEEN!

Roger wrestled Layla a safe distance away from both the boy and his puppy and I signed us in. What followed would have broken your heart - until you laughed out loud. Layla started whining and moaning something pitiful, trying her hardest to get to "her" boy and "her" puppy.

When she wasn't whining she was wiggling and wagging her tail, beating it on the wall behind her; and beating it hard enough and long enough, that a picture fell OFF the wall and crashed to the ground; slicing Roger's arm open and barely missing giving me a concussion before it hit the floor and shattered into a dozen pieces.

They got us in an exam room pretty quickly after that (big surprise). I DID offer to pay for the broken frame, but they refused. I think next time I'll just see if we can run a tab. Do you think they'd have a payment plan?

I know the economy is bad and employment is down, but do you ever wonder how successful some people would be if they put as much effort into legitimately WORKING for a living instead of, oh, I don't know, STEALING mail out of your mailbox? Specifically, MY mailbox?

I got a surprise call one day last week from an extremely observant and conscientious teller at our bank's Duncanville location. She was calling to verify a check, written on our account in the amount of $600.00, payable to someone I'd never heard of, and signed, supposedly, by Roger.

After she described the check, giving me the number and who the check was payable to, I assured her the check being presented was NOT written by either Roger or myself. She replied she had thought the check was bogus from the beginning because it had a strange appearance and looked as if Roger's name had been traced over in two different colored inks.

She immediately contacted the police and I'm happy to say the thief was arrested and is now on his way to felonyland, where he might even learn an honest trade...or maybe just figure out how to do a better job of forgery and brush up on his acting skills.

How did this all happen? Roger made the mistake of thinking mailing our bills in our mailbox in front of our very own house was a safe thing to do. We really didn't seriously consider the fact that someone would come along, see the raised red flag (NOW you know where that flag gets it's name, don't you?), pull to the curb and actually STEAL OUR MAIL OUT OF THE MAILBOX.

This still amazes me whenever I think about it. On the rare occasions we've had a neighbor's mail accidentally delivered to our house, and I've taken the mail to the right address, I'm always afraid to put the mail in their mailbox, even though IT BELONGS THERE. I know I'm not doing anything wrong, but in the back of my mind I keep expecting an alarm to go off and a booming voice to instruct me to STEP AWAY FROM THE MAILBOX, PLACE YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD AND NO SUDDEN MOVES.

This whole episode has been a learning experience and I've picked up a few tips along the way. The first tip is from our mailman, who tells me NOT to use our mailbox to send payments. He, himself, mails anything of value from INSIDE the post office; and don't EVER raise the flag on the mailbox - it sends a signal to EVERYONE, not just the mailman.

The Mesquite Police officer I spoke with suggested we start writing our checks with gel pens. Apparently, the ink in gel pens makes it more difficult for a thief to "wash" and successfully forge a check. My sister, a Vice President for Comerica Bank, still finds it hard to believe someone managed to steal mail out of our mailbox in Mesquite in the morning and make it to Duncanville with a doctored check by 10:00 a.m. that same morning. I say that's what happens when people don't take the time to do quality work.

And, while I'm at it, I'd like to give a tip to the Failed Forger in this story: Pay attention to the details! The suspicious look of the sloppily "washed" check, and the different colored inks on the signature were bad enough, but what REALLY blew it for you was your note on the memo line that read"for painting services".

If that check had been 100% perfect in every other way, I would have known it was a fraud the moment the teller told me about that memo note. The day Roger pays ANYBODY $600.00 to paint our house is the day AFTER he's hit the billion dollar jackpot and, believe me, Publisher's Clearing House has NOT been ringing my doorbell.