The Legend of Chug

Summer, 2007. I have been out of college for a year and a half. Since graduating with a nigh useless fine arts degree (but no student loan debt, Caitlin: 1 World:0), I have held a number of jobs. There was the obligatory stint as a barista, a pre-dawn to early afternoon routine at a family run hippy den with pot breaks and free food between lattes and 97 cent tips. Then, moving up in the world, I became a caregiver to stroke victims and dementia patients. Decoder of gibberish, wiper of faces, handmaiden of death: I was scrub-clad ghettofabulous. Added to this, at the same time that I was making friends in the 90+ age range, I took another part-time job as a wake attendant at a funeral home. It's a logical step, really.

And then, finally, the first job that lasted a year: teaching K-4th grade, literacy and storytelling.

Kids! Telling stories to kids! I thought it would be great. I'd read "Watership Down" out loud to them. They'd thrill to the anti-mitilaristic themes and rabbit drama. Kids love anti-mitilaristic themes! And rabbits! Especially in West Rogers Park. They would be calling me Miss Caitlin, not Ms. Parrish. They'd respect me, but we'd be buds. I was psyched. I was psyched in a preadolescent "Dead Poets Society" way. This was going to be tight ("Like a five year old," says the Satan on my right shoulder, listening to the Diamond Dogs album and smoking a cigarillo).

No, no. Not so much with the Carpe Diem. More Carpe the six year-old choking his classmate to death in the hallway.

Miss Caitlin: "Josh! We do not choke other people!"

David (Josh's cousin): "Man! Josh, you can't be puling that shit at school. You got to make your moms proud!"

Miss Caitlin: "David, we don't use language like that at school."

David: "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Miss Caitlin. Josh, you can't be pulling that S-H-I-T at school. You got to make your moms proud."

Miss Caitlin: "...thank you, David."

And so on. My preconceived notions died a slow death, like another stroke victim certain that today is the day their family will come to visit them. Each day was the day I was going to make a difference. I had no illusions that I wanted to be a teacher for the rest of my life, but I want to put in a year, and make some kids love stories. By the end I was calling them perpetually sticky compulsive liars and contemplating how much it would hurt to rip out my uterus during the middle of class and throw it at the second graders, screaming, "YOU DID THIS TO ME!"

In any event, back to the summer of 2007. I had put in a final session to make some cash before starting an out of state gig I had landed in Florida. Comprised of field trips and in-school video screenings (we had some fun with "The Witches" and "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi"), the last weeks of my tenure as Miss Caitlin seemed like a fading cakewalk, something I'd occasionally recount over overpriced Canadian beer whenever another regrettable first date came along.

And then it happened. The day that cemented my fate, my story, my name.

Janette Hernandez was a rising third grader with brown hair down to her ass, a beautiful face, and the charm of Donald Rumsfeld. A despot in waiting, she had been one of the banes of my existence over the course of the year, and I looked forward to never seeing her again.

It was early. Everyone was still a little passed out, shoveling free breakfast into our craws without thought or care, assured that the pop tarts would give us the sugar high we needed to make it to second activity. I had coffee. I never walked into that place without consuming enough caffeine to kill a small horse. Because we don't choke other people at school, and I had to set an example for the kids.

I saw her bounding by her table, pop tart eaten and sugar threading to her fingers. She saw me. I froze like a deer. She ran in my direction. I prayed she'd run past me to Miss Kristin, the music teacher. Miss Kristin still liked the students.

No such luck.

Janette: "Miss Caitlin! Miss Caitlin! Guess what?! This weekend! My mom? We got a dog!"

Miss Caitlin: "That's great, Janette."

Janette: "And it's half chihuahua! And half pug! And it's soooooo cute."

Miss Caitlin: "That's great, Janette." ("So what is that? A chug? That's a fugly-ass dog," said the Satan on my right shoulder, snorting coke off a hooker's ass, dressed only in a pink bathrobe and Ugg boots.)

Janette: "And I'm gonna feed it! And bathe it! And take care of it!"

Miss Caitlin: "That's great, Janette. Having a dog is a big responsibility." (A brief and melancholy smile from the angel on my left shoulder at my attempt to impart a lesson of some kind. Then he went back to bed, half-cashed joint in hand.)

Janette: "BUT MISS CAITLIN! Guess what?!"

Miss Caitlin: "...what, Janette?"

Janette: "My mom? She asked me if I had thoughts of any names? And I said, 'Miss Caitlin.'"

Miss Kristin (from two tables over): unintelligible sound resembling a half-laugh half-gut punch.

Miss Caitlin: "...thank you, Janette."

Janette: "YOU'RE WELCOME!"

Now, I truly believe this was intended to be an honor and a loving tribute from Janette to a teacher that had been trying for twelve months to make her a better reader, a better writer, a better young woman. And sometimes when I think about it, I'm very touched, and I look back on my tenure as a teacher with something unlike regret. The angel on my left shoulder gazes back at Janette and thinks to himself, "She's gonna be a great landlord someday."

But most of the time I just think that somewhere in west Rogers Park there is a fugly ass dog with my name on it getting whapped with a rolled up newspaper because it pissed on the couch.

"No! Bad Miss Caitlin!"

And the Satan on my right shoulder laughs, and laughs, and laughs...

As did, and do, my friends, who tell this story to people I don't even know, when I'm not even there.

So now I tell it to you, as a prelude of sorts. 'Cause here's what Miss Caitlin really thinks.

The world is an inhospitable place for smart women trying to make a difference. They end up disillusioned, with only a bitch bearing their name to show for it. They get chugged by life. Not me. I embrace the chug. I embrace the grotesque hybrid that being a smart woman in America can sometimes feel like. I intend to piss on the couch of absurdity, and then give it that black eyed stare that says, "What're you gonna do about it? I'm too freakin' cute to hate."

Let the stories and the rants fly. Let the blog bandwagon move upon which I have jumped move speedily. Let the angel on my left and the Satan on my right hang out once in a while and commiserate over sushi.

I am Miss Caitlin. Hear me yap.