So, I’ve already shared the experiences with various “critters” at my work. I have since learned that there is a family of mice who live in the bushes outside of my room. I have learned to like the spiders because they make webs that catch and kill the nasty big roaches in my room. I don’t clean up the webs and have left a dead roach in a web as a warning sign to any other roaches that think about wandering my room. We are not allowed to spray any sort of insecticide in our rooms for fear of the children being allergic. When the principal was approached about the district taking care of it, he explained that the school has to be free of students for 3 days after a spray so that the air can clear. Apparently the district did not think the nearly 3 months of summer was long enough to take care of the problem. So in the meantime, I went to the store and bought the roach motels for large roaches…yeah, they are not big enough for my roaches to fit inside, but I keep them just to make myself feel a little better. Since this lack of supplies was not helping my roach genocide, I have since enlisted students to come in the morning and take care of my problem for me. One student wanted to pick up the roach with his bare hands…ew! Luckily, these students do not mind helping, in fact, I think they pride themselves in being my little heroes.
Now, on to the topic of this post: bees. We have a major bee issue, and I mean major. There are easily SWARMS of bees on my campus. They all tend to hang out in the lunch area by all of the trashcans. When I walk across the lunch area to get to the staff room, I easily run into 10-12 bees a day, and that’s while trying to avoid the trash cans. A student was stung all over his head the other day when a swarm of them decided to attack his head. On subsequent days, he was afraid to go to lunch and was allowed to eat in his counselor’s office. After a few days, she encouraged him to go back to lunch. He agreed, and sure enough, a swarm came toward him again. He freaked out and started screaming and was sent to the counselor’s office again. Now, if you were the parent of this child, what would you do? If it were my child, I’m thinking the school would be closed for three days to freaking exterminate all of these suckers! Part of me wants one of the “more involved” parents to become aware of the issue so that it gets taken care of because apparently nothing is going to happen otherwise. Oh, and need I remind you that I am in So. Cal, where the freaking scary African bees are?!
