here we go, here we go, here we go.

I am going to officially take the position tomorrow. I am going to look at a contract, and read some confusing documents about health insurance, and I am going to drive to the school and look around and see if I get my own classroom or if I have to share, and I am going to drive my car around the town of Hutchinson, 14,000, try to spy some FOR RENT signs, try to spy the bad side and the good side and the reasons it has been declared Minnesota's Best Small Town.

I am going to steal some curriculum, give myself a new reading list for the summer, all involved with two Shakespeare works and some Dickens, some novels some freshman might read. I am going to try to make all of this make sense in my head. Living 55 miles west of Minneapolis. Living in a new place. Letting go of Rochester for a year. My third first year of teaching. My last first year of teaching.

And all of a sudden, with a phone call, within 12 hours, I have an entirely different life ahead of me than I had on Tuesday.

People call Hutchinson Hutch. I'm sure I'll start doing this soon, but right now it just sounds too much like crotch to me. From Crochester to Crotch. I am going from Panther to Tiger. Make all the pussy jokes you want. No, no, go ahead. I deserve it.

*

I should've known, as I told Chad during a phone call last night, that I'd be offered the job at Hutchinson, teaching 9th and 12th grade, because there were issues with the secretary from the beginning.

I have a history with secretaries. I just do. There were some issues with Captain Stirrup Pants at MSU. There was passive aggression in the office. And it was nothing big, it was just three years of me being annoyed. And then, at Century, there was the secretary who had to let me into my office for those first three (or was it four) weeks of school. That was insane. She didn't understand that I, in fact, needed to get into my own office every day. Yup. Every morning I have to get into my office.

I spoke with Kathy for the first time on Friday of last week. She'd called with a job interview invitation while I was driving to another job interview in Chisago Lakes. I missed her call and I was driving--I couldn't call her back. And I couldn't call her back for the rest of the business day either, because I had a second interview that day, and then I had to drive back to Elgin, and then I had to collapse because I was so exhausted and by then the business day was over. I figured I would call Kathy as soon as I woke up on Friday. It's not like I didn't want the interview, it's just that sometimes people get their messages late.

Kathy called me first on Friday. She called at 8:30. She left a message; she said Hi, Jean. It's Kathy from Hutchinson. SECOND CALL. She said, give us a call back. She was not as friendly the second time around. In fact, I think I'd done a pretty good job at pissing her off.

So, I called back right away. Said, sorry, sorry, got my messages late. I would love to interview. And she said, Tuesday, 10:30.

I am late for the interview. The roads from Albertville to Hutchinson are a curvy labyrinth of bait shops and townships and sleeping cows. I am six minutes late. I'm mad at myself, and sweating in my suit. I'm really pissed at roads that are blocks apart that are labeled 2nd Avenue and then again 2nd Avenue when one of them is supposed to be a SW and the other a NW and neither self-identifies. Kathy calls. She says, Hi, Jean, this is Kathy.

I say: My God, I'm so sorry, I'm lost, and I think I'm close.

The building I've just pulled up to that I think is the high school is in fact an elementary school. I drive around a little more, and then when I am officially 10 minutes late I call Kathy back, and I say, Hi, Kathy, this is Jean.

I'm still lost. I'm by the elementary school.

Kathy gives me directions from there. Her directions are wrong, actually, but I figure it out. I am now between 15 and 20 minutes late, and I rush in, and there is my friend Kathy sitting at the desk. She is not what I thought she'd look like. She says, they decided to interview the other gal who was here. Do you need a restroom? I say no. I sit down. Kathy stares at me. I think she has run out of work to do for the day. She looks like the mom from What's Eating Gilbert Grape, but she's not nearly as large. She's large, but not Gilbert-Grape-mom-large. In fact, I've so strongly associated her with this character that I can't imagine her for real. Other than her short almost bowl-cut hair, a bright blue t-shirt, and stretch khaki pants.

I'm sitting in the office. There is a painting of a tiger on the wall and I'm pretty sure it's on velvet. Kathy gets a visitor, a woman who I think is in charge of transcripts in the office. They have a 15 minute conversation that could've been three minutes, but instead Kathy repeats her side of the story every two minutes. A girl needed transcripts. Kathy didn't know how to print them. She told the girl she didn't know how to print them, she could try, but if possible, could they come back on Tuesday when Deb was here?

And the girl missed out on a scholarship because she didn't get the transcripts on time. And Kathy said: She should've said! I didn't know! about 712 times.

I want to get up and leave. I'm anxious and mad at myself for being late. My heels have mud stuck on the bottom because I cut through the grass to get to the school sooner. Another secretary, Sara, tells me that I have a nice briefcase. I like her. She's a bottle blonde, and she's wearing brown Calvin Klein walking shorts, and she gets shit done, I can tell. When a mother comes in, freaking the fuck out about her son's summer school enrollment, she talks to Kathy about it for five minutes, and then Kathy says I'm going to have you talk to Sara. Then Sara solves the problem right away. Then Sara asks me why I'm there and I say English job and she wishes me good luck and gives me a wink.

I've been waiting for 20 minutes, and I'm pissed at myself for not leaving a book in my briefcase. Kathy, who has been talking about their upcoming lunch meeting for the last 15 minutes, has started to eat chips at her desk. In between conversations with officemates about how today is her 25th anniversary--and how they both forgot last year--crazy shit!--she has started to eat chips from a snack-size bag. The office is careful-quiet. Very office-y. Kathy is aware of this, and so in her attempts to eat the chips quietly, she is 50 times as loud. I hear every move. I hear her chubby fingers going into the bag, the krinkle krinkle as they brush the side of the bag, I could, if I wanted to, time the seconds it takes for her fingers to move from bag to mouth, and then I hear the CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH of Kathy eating one chip at a time. It sounds like someone is taking a sledge hammer to a windshield. CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH goes Kathy. I can imagine the grease on her fingers, the salt on her finger tips that she rolls off by rubbing her thumb and index finger together. And then I hear the hand go back the bag, ever so carefully, krinkle krinkle krinkle, CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH. Krinkle krinkle krinkle CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUNCH.

I want my interview to start.

But, it's been 25 minutes, and it's not time yet. Sara is working at her desk, across the office from Kathy, about 25 feet away. Kathy still seems like she needs something to do. She talks to me. She says, Sara and I are both new--I've only been working here for 2 and a half years and Sara started last year. I say, that's nice. Kathy says, how long have you been teaching? And I tell her I taught college for three years and then that I worked in a high school last year. She says, well, it's good that you got that year of high school, then. I want to ask her what the fuck that means, and then I want her to CALM DOWN ABOUT THE CHIPS ALREADY but I just smile and give a little interviewee laugh.

Now Kathy needs something else to do, so she decides to look through the paper and then provide a commentary to the busy Sara, across the office. So, every two minutes, she'll spot something she likes, and then she'll holler across the office, Heeeeeyyy Saaaaaaara? And Sara stops typing but doesn't turn her head. She says, Uh, yes, Kathy? And Kathy says, do you know where the so-and-so park is? And Sara tells her, it's by Hardees. And then Sara starts typing again. A turn of the page in the newspaper, and then from Kathy, Heeeeeyyy Saaaaaaaaara? Sara stops typing. She says, yes? And Kathy says, so this kid in the paper who won the royalty, is that Don's kid? Sara says, yes.

And this goes on a couple of more times.

It's been a good 40 minutes. I hear a door close and I see the candidate before me come out. I hear her first; she's wearng flip flops. So much of me doesn't understand. Nor understand the floor-length black dress she's wearing, the sparkles on her cardigan, the scarves. English teachers are ridiculous. (But now, I think of her, and I'm sad, because she's going to get a call that someone else accepted the job at that the somebody else is me, and I just know how it feels to be the one on the crappy end of that phone call. I just feel horrible.)

I go to interview with the principal and the department chair and another departmentee and the assistant principal. The interview goes well. They ask the question: tell us everything you know about one of your students and I think it's the greatest question ever. I tell them about Josh for a good ten minutes. I make them laugh. I make them nod a lot. I also make them make scrunchy faces a lot, and I think I use a couple of words incorrectly. I tell them one of my favorite things about teaching is when a student comes running up to you wearing a recent story like a new hat.

During the interview, when I'm answering a question about assessment pieces (they love my Post-it strategies for anonymous informal assessment--the muddiest point I picked up from the CETL group in Kato) there's a knock on the door. We ignore it; I keep talking. Then again, and then the door opens a crack, and the principal looks up and says Yes, Kathy? I can't see her. My back is to the door. But Kathy makes an announcement about everyone going to lunch, and should she lock the office, and should she turn off the lights, and they're going to a lunch meeting, and just so you know. The principal says, yes Kathy. He's nice. She closes the door. He apologizes. I say, no problem.