Why I Prefer My Fantasy Life #119

Did I mention I hate English teachers?

Did I mention I am an English teacher?

Last week I was hired as a full-time instructor at a small two-year college. I don't mind the teaching so much. But in my fantasy life I'd have students that didn't come late, leave early, and talk on their cell phones the short amount of time they were in class.

In my fantasy life, most of my students would have a high school diploma. And know how to write a simple sentence. And use a computer. And not have kids. Or criminal records.

In my fantasy life, I'd be on a campus where they didn't have two security guards, one roaming the hallways and one stationed in the women's restroom so it won't be trashed.

Because it has been trashed.

Often.

But really, I admire and am humbled by the fact that most of my students are ready for a new start in life, eager to give it their all.

I only wish that their hopeful faces weren't covered with the school- required bandages to hide their piercings. 'Cause if this guy comes in adhering to the bandage dress code, I think I'd be really spooked.

posted at Humor-Blogs

Why "Prefers Her Fantasy Life"

Three high-maintenance handfuls, a hyperactive black lab, a husband addicted to eBay, a propensity for alliteration, the reason is obvious. This post is about how I came up with the title for my bloggy world.

As a writer, I have won a few awards. I hate to brag, but I scored a silver award from the Council on Foundations, an investigative journalism award from Parenting Publications of America, and the Guinness Toast award from Mickey Finn’s Pub (prize was a tall, velvet Guinness hat, good for snowmen).



But my most cherished award is from my KnowledgeWorks editor, Linda. It’s a smallish plastic trophy with a sticker on one side that reads ‘best telling detail’ and on the other side, ‘most disregard for spelling of names.’



It’s not that I have a disregard for spelling. It’s that I can't f-ing do it have some sort of impairment.

Case in point—I had reservations with some of the names I came up with for this blog, so I bribed my editor with jewelry asked my editor to vote for one of the following:

The Clogging Blogger (in a word, queer)
Crazed and Confused (taken)
Writer, Wife, Mom, Drunk (I was trying to get away from the wife thing)
Harried With Children (didn’t want to limit my blog to straight people)
Midlife-ing It (didn’t want to limit my blog to old people)
Suburban Subversive (seemed too difficult to say under the influence)

Linda said she liked Suburban Subversive. So I checked to see if the name was taken and yeah!!! it wasn’t.

I was now the Suburban Subversive!!!!

And this Suburban Subversive neglected her family for a day and a half painstakingly created a profile on the site. It read like this:

I’m not really a subversive. I just like to stick it to the man every once in a while. You see:

…I’m the one in elementary school who raised her hand and asked the ‘If there is a God, then why’ question

…the one in junior high school who got sent to the principal’s office for wearing a bare midriff

…the one in high school who refused to say the Pledge of Alliance during my Honor Society induction

… the one after high school who hitchhiked out west with her best friend and then a year later, moved to Venice Beach with her boyfriend

…Now I drive a mini-van. With a peace sticker on the bumper



And so on and so forth.

For days, I googled my subversive site and admired my new blog description box. I couldn’t, however, post anything because there was no manual called ‘Layout for Dummies’ handy. I wasted five f-ing hours and drank four beers messing around with page layout and photos. No f-ing luck.

Before bed, I googled my blog again and this time another Suburban Subversive came up.

What the F--K!! (isn’t it silly to do that when everyone knows the word is fuck?)

What the F—K!!

I THOUGHT I WAS THE SUBURBAN SUBVERSIVE.

Where’s my blog?

And who is this other subversive?

Is she as cool as I am?

This must be a mistake.

I then navigated back to my dashboard and linked onto my blog that way. And guess what? I discovered I was the Surburban Subversive.

Surburban with an extra R!!

So it’s really no joke, I can’t f-ing spell, and I have an award and a now defunct blog to prove it.

So what did I do? I calmly swigged another beer and downed a double dose of Paxil changed the name to ‘Prefers Her Fantasy Life.’ You know, like a fantasy life where I can spell (but I don't have to because John and I have people to do that for us).

And truth be told, it may be for the best. Suburban Subversive could scare the likes of NPR or Oprah from knocking on my door.

And really, ‘Prefers Her Fantasy Life’ would look nice on a t-shirt, don’t you think? With maybe a Lloyd Dobler finger puppet on the back.

And now my fantasy life is about ready to get kicked off the front page at Humor-Blogs, so if you prefer it or if you prefer Bee's fantasy life or even your own, VOTE for this post at Humor-Blogs.