Friday, I was given a gift from a student. It was a bag of sour candy. I don’t eat much candy these days, so it was lying on my desk when I went into work this afternoon. I had forgotten to pack snacks since I left my apartment in a hurry, so decided to give the candies a try in the teacher’s room between classes. One noisy student came running past the room and detected the candy approaching my mouth with that candy radar all students have.
He yelled out, "Candy! I want candy! Me too! Me too!"
Since not sharing food is a little rude, even if the child was younger than me, it would be considered "nice" to share. The boy in question is already bouncing off the walls, and if I gave some to him, I would have to give it to everyone else that knew about it. I lied. "Oh, what candy. I don’t have any more. It’s all gone."
He bounced away to tell all his friends I had candy. Before he got far, I called him back in the office, gave him a piece of candy, then did the international, "Let’s keep this a secret" finger to lip shushing motion. He nodded understanding and began to skip away again.
The students were confused today, since they were getting new books, new classrooms, new classmates, along with new teachers. The boy and his classmates were roaming around looking for where they were supposed to go as I prepared for my class. I heard the boy tell the others as he pointed to me, "Oh, I got candy from him today…WAIT! NO, NO I DIDN’T!" He actually put his hands over his mouth as if to shove the words back into his mouth.
I said, "Smooth," as I handed out the rest of the candy to the classmates that overheard him. Loose lips cost candy.
