My Tiny Mother With a Big Pointy Tree

My mother works at a large, public, city high school. She works in the building set aside for first-year students, who are separated from the general population to help them better make the transition from middle school to high school - it works, too - their attrition rate has dropped since they moved to this model several years ago.

She is not a teacher anymore. Now she is a specialist who supports teachers, supports the administration, and does a lot of MCAS (state testing) stuff. Even when she was tied to a classroom all day, she was a team player and generally helpful, but now that she is more free to roam freely about the building without kids in her care, she's taken on that role even more. She is the one who convinces the janitor to help haul boxes upstairs and she's the general problem-solver for things from how to organize the testing materials to putting away the Christmas tree.

Hence this story. I'm hoping I can do it justice in writing, because when she told me the story, the two of us were laughing so hard we could barely talk.

The Christmas tree that had been decorating the main office in her building had been taken down and put back in the box but it had been sitting there for days and nobody had put it away in the closet where it belongs. Finally, Mom got sick of looking at it, and bent her 5' 3", slightly overweight, 65-year-old body over and hauled the tree up onto her shoulder. The box was about 5 feet long, and the tip of the tree was sticking out the end like a javelin. She stood there for a moment, and then asked if someone would please open the door for her. Someone did.

She headed down the hall, likely moving as quickly as she usually does. Mind you, she may be only 5'3", but I've spent my entire life, with my 34" legs and 5' 10" self asking her to slow down so I can keep up with her. So she's hauling ass down the hall with the giant box on her shoulder, passing by teachers watching this whole thing as she goes. She gets to a 50-something guy teacher, and instead of offering to take the box for her, he says, "Hey, got a nickel?"

At this point in the story, I stopped her. "What?" I asked. "What does that even mean?" She said she didn't really know, other than his way of giving her shit, asking her to do something that would require using a hand to dig in her pocket for a coin. Just a way to mess with her further as she made her way past him.

"What did you say to him?" I asked. "I don't know," she said "Something like, 'I'll get you later.' What I wanted to do was poke him in the chest with the tip of the tree." I pictured that in my mind's eye and started cracking up again. My mom, as tiny as she is, using the tree as a sword and poking this guy in the chest with it. HILARIOUS!

I asked her to continue the story. When she got to the end of the hallway and to another door, she had to ask someone to open it again. She had to ask! Nobody just opened the door for her! She may not like that I'm going to say this, but she's a damn senior citizen. I know she doesn't look or act like one. But she is, for fuck's sake!

So that door gets opened, and she asks someone else to open the closet. They do, and then they watch as she throws the tree up over her shoulder onto the top shelf of the closet in one movement. And then she closed the closet door and went about her business.

Now I ask you, what is the most amazing part of this story. Is it:

a. That my senior citizen, almost midget, slightly overweight mom is really a hidden superhero, mover-of-heavy objects?
b. That nobody offered to help her?
c. That she didn't actually assault the idiot asking for a nickel?

Up to you, my friends. You get to decide which you think is the most amazing. Me? I just wish I had video of the whole thing.