Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Roommates

For those of you who may be out of the loop, I happen to share a classroom wall with our middle school Science teacher, Christian "Ike" Eikerman.

For the past year-and-a-half, I've endured the hijinx of my next door neighbor. He's a great guy, but a little off. As anybody who knows him can attest, he bounces down the hallway like a beach ball. When he teaches, he prowls around his room like a caged animal. In personal conversation, he'll stand only inches from your face. A self-proclaimed Obsessive-Compulsive, he takes no less than three showers a day, and spends those hours between them drinking pot after pot of coffee. He sleeps only four or five hours a night because, in his words, "sleep is boring."

In the time that I've known him, Ike has lost four of his classroom keys, and broken two of his laptops. 

Ike and I have convinced the students that we are, in fact, roommates. Supposedly, we own a plantation house in the "older part" of Kansas City, Kansas. Often times, we'll take turns barging into one another's classroom, mid-lesson, in order to discuss something that's going on at home. Today, I told him that "it was a nice surprise this morning, waking up to the smell of fresh-baking monkey bread." He, in return, reminded me that I need to close the garage door when I leave in the morning because "today was the third day in a row that you left it open."

But what about this stretch of unseasonably nice weather? We've told the students that we share a tandem bike that we ride into school. Students insist on seeing it, but we tell them it's locked up in our principal's office for the day.

These students who are fascinated with our "roommate" status are also quite aware that I'm married with a child.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love this stuff!

-B

10 February, 2009  
Blogger Sundance said...

Now that's funny! I think you can draw on your Bachelor Pad days for more experiences to use. Have you tried teasing him about eating too many frozen pizzas or complaining about the dishes left in the sink? :)

10 February, 2009  
Blogger leslie said...

You're hilarious.

We have a friend who has convinced his students that Hitler invented the pecan sandie ("People don't really realize he was a very talented baker") and that the MacArthur Fellowship comes with a washer/dryer set.

11 February, 2009  
Blogger Steaming bowl o' Calderone said...

I am so thankful that these are the people guiding our troubled youth.

:)

12 February, 2009  
Blogger Steaming bowl o' Calderone said...

By the way, every time I come back to this page and see the same Roommates post, I find myself constantly looking at the tandem bike pic. With the expression you've given Christian and the location of your handlebars, it has become a very disturbing picture.

19 February, 2009  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is adorable. Do you slide down a fire pole from your bunk beds to get to the bike?

28 February, 2009  

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