Or so the saying goes.

This from the little girl who burst into tears and told her teacher that her grandma was dead so I could be the cashier at the classroom store. I mean, I already got away with murder because I was freakishly young and small when I was in kindergarten, but damn, I had to be in charge of that register, too. Ahhh...aspiriations. God, I was a manipulative little thing, wasn't I? At least I've grown up.
Pffffft.

Now, as a teacher, I enjoy the karmic slap in the ass of dealing with kids who are working on perfecting their own artforms. Most of the times these little trials and forays into the "adult" world are but mere blips on my radar screen, but sometimes I just have to stop and, well, laugh.
With them, NOT AT THEM, because you know, I'm there to mold and nurture.
PFFFFT #2.

Yesterday, several of my students stayed behind to help me clean up the classroom. YAY! No maid duty for me! I decided to reward my little elves by giving them MORE! SUGAR! in the form of dum dums from the five pound bag I hang above their heads like a disciplinary pinata. Now, there must be about five hundred flavors in here, and not all of them are desirable - there's the standard bubble gum, cotton candy, strawberry, and all the typical yummy sugariness, and then there's the mystery flavors, which I am convinced are such culinary infractions as "earthworms and dirt" or "tripe". M'mmm, M'mmm Good. Point? Was there? Oh yeah. I just give what I give. As I tell them, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit." I don't have time to sift through the bag and pick out all the flavors that they like. That would catapult me to "best teacher ever", and as we all know, I got a REP to protect.

Yesterday, as I handed a little girl a cherry flavored dum dum, she told me, "I can't eat no cherry! I'm allergic to cherry! I'm lactose intolerant!"

This from the child who I've watched eat cereal with milk, cheese, yogurt and ice cream and did I SAY MILK? every day for 60 days in a row.

LACTOSE!
INTOLERANT!

Thus proving to me that I have not taught my young proteges the #1 rule in bullshitting.

KNOW YOUR SUBJECT.

Now, how am I going to write that into my lesson plans?