Hey Baby

"It's looks like a flower/gift store in this place" she said as she walked in the front door of the office. Vases of flowers, bags of candy, cards and stuffed animals covered every surface in the room. Balloons bobbed their greetings of love over in the corner. It seemed that the students were more focused on the Valentine holiday coming up than the fact that it was Friday the 13th.

Friday the 13th, a bad luck day. A day when bad things happen, and she had woken up sick but had to go to work anyway. It had been so long since she was young and in love. Lately all she was was lonely and overworked. Maybe there would come a day that someone would send her sweet nothings and swear undying love, but today was not it.

The morning would be spent checking student grades and credit tallies. She had to meet with students that were behind in credits and help them make a plan to recover credits before graduation in 15 weeks. But first she needed to deal with the students hanging out in the hall. There would be no expressions of love coming from them and she knew it.

When she got back to her desk, she found that Carol had brought over the list of new and leaving students to be included in the meeting notes for Monday. There were also at least 12 vases each holding a single red rose bud. The front office was full and now the deliveries were spilling over into hers. She looked at the clock. The work day was only 45 minutes old and she was already ready for it to be over.

The door to the office banged open again with students checking in late and teachers using the office as a short cut to the lounge. Everyone used the office as a cut through. She sighed as the space heater was kicked over. Again. And she bumped the open drawer of the filing cabinet when she pushed back from the desk to answer the phone on Shelly's desk. It would be nice when the new office was done and she could move into her own space.

She pulled up the notes from last week's students at risk meeting so that she could build the agenda for Monday's meeting. The door banged into the wall as someone came in She sighed, took a breath and looked up. It was another student with flowers to be delivered. When she looked at the card, her name was on the single long stemmed white rose. But there was no other name on the card. It was then that Sheryl told her that the vases scattered around the room were not for students, but for her.

Again the door banged open. The room was full of the chamber choir gathering around her desk. Someone gave a note and they began to sing.




Her mood began to lift as she watched the boys singing to her. She smiled at their antics as they got into acting out the lyrics. Too bad this was just the choir teacher's version of Valentine's caroling. It would have been more fun if it was an actual val-e-gram sent to her by a true love.

Then the song ended and the singers parted. There, on his knee, in her office, was her knight in shining armour.

Friday the 13 a bad luck day? No, Friday the 13th, the luckiest day in her life.

**This story is not true, except that today is Friday the 13th, the front office did look like a flower/gift shop, I was not feeling well, I did have to spend my morning dealing with grades, credits, sluffing students and writing the agenda for Monday's meeting. There were no white or red roses, no declarations of love, and there is no true love appearing as knight in shining armour or otherwise. But the chamber choir did come in and sing that song and it was cute, and fun and they were amazing.

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Indeed.