"Do you think this makes me want to invite you to my house?"

First grade teachers have to deal with a lot of problems that have nothing to do with whether their kids know how to read or do basic math (although I guess all teachers do). Because of the time of year, and all the canceled specials and outdoor recess, those problems seemed to be a lot bigger over the past two weeks. The biggest one? Our classroom bathroom.

Every day for two weeks, someone was peeing on the floor of the bathroom. It was gross. We had already had the talk that just because there's a drain (in this case, on the floor) does not mean you can pee in it. Several boys had further questions after that.

"Why not?"
"Well would you pee in a sink? That has a drain in it."
Blank stares. My thoughts- Oh God, they peed in the sink.


After that, I had everyone close their eyes and offered a Dum Dum to the student who was honest enough to admit to doing it, whether it was by accident or on purpose. Three boys raised their hands. THREE. They admitted to peeing all over the bathroom for a piece of D list candy. I had to have a talk with them, trying VERY hard not to just yell about locking it up and getting themselves under control.

"What do you think we can do to solve this problem?"

The three boys looked at me inquisitively. Then Gabriel, one of the few white kids in my class with a thick backcountry accent says, "I think maybe I might stand too far away." Yeah, that sounds like a good place to start to me.

Later that week, our toilet started spurting water out of the top, flooding the bathroom with at least an inch of standing water (good thing there's a drain!). I called the office, ready to evacuate the room for fear of rising toilet water. Luckily, the water stopped after about five minutes. Even more lucky because no one ever came down to fix it.

Which brings me to my main story. Before lunch one day, Gabriel came running out of the bathroom speaking so quickly and with such Southern twang I could barely understand him.

"I don' know what happened Miss Fi-rillo but I was jus' in the bathroom and washin' my hands and all of a sudden out of nowhere the piece fell right on off of that sink and I didn't do nothin' and it just fell and now it's sprayin' all over the place and I don' know why."

Translation: the piece that makes the sink water come out in a soft, steady stream somehow fell off. I didn't think it would be that bad until I turned on the sink and a stream of water came shooting out so hard it ricocheted off the porcelain and almost took my eye out. I hastily tried to screw it back on, but one of the pieces wouldn't fit. I left it by the sink, deciding to wait until the end of the day to call a custodian.

At the end of the day, one of my girls came to me and informed me that the metal piece of the sink had gotten thrown in the toilet. I was mad. Really mad. And really fed up with all these bathroom problems.

"IF SOMEONE DOESN'T TELL ME WHO THREW THAT PIECE IN THE TOILET, I AM CANCELING FIELD DAY FOR EVERYBODY."

Gasps. Color drained from their faces. A chorus of "I didn't do it!" rang from the class.

I calmed myself down a little bit. "I don't need to know who didn't do it," I replied, writing NO FIELD DAY in big black letters on the whiteboard. "But if I don't find out who did do it, we will be sitting inside doing MATH WORKSHEETS during Field Day."

Kids started packing up, and Gabriel starts walking sullenly to the front of the room. I should have known.

"Uh, Mis Fi-rillo?" he said, looking down. "I, uh... I think I might have been the one who threw the thing in the toilet.

"You either did it or you didn't Gabriel."

He paused for five seconds. Then- "I did it."

I made him go get it out and replace it in the original spot on the sink. While he was doing that, I erased my NO FIELD DAY message and started to meet my packed-up class on the carpet.

Just before I got there, Gabriel walked by me again.

"Well you're welcome for telling the TRUTH!" he proclaimed with his hands on his hips.

Oh right. I'm supposed to thank you when you throw stuff in the toilet. They must have skipped over that in Teach For America training.