Home » Poems » Caren Krutsinger » The Children Know Me

The Children Know Me

Children are always bringing me something great.
One time a little girl said “I made my mom buy you this.”
It was the glitziest, cutest, most colorful dress in the world,
Size 2.
I wear a 16.
Um….
Crap.
I made a purse out of it, which I hoped might please her.
And it did.
One time an 8-year-old who trusted no one decided to trust
Me.
I think it’s my nutty personality.
He came to my office in the morning and said with a TERRIFIC
Smile, “Guess what I brought you?”
Ta-dah!
He had brought me the prettiest holiest maple leaf in dried up tannish brown colors.
I could tell that he had spent a bit of time finding the exact right one, so I wore it all day long pinned to my shirt.
Some idiot teachers tried to make fun of me, but I skipped away.
In my art room sits a glitzy dyed-purple ink pen that is very proud of herself.
She has a large dyed purple peacock feather attached to her by a bold but demure enormously beautiful 6 inch diamond, possibly fake.
Two boys whose names I will not divulge here came running up to me at Kwanza time and presented it to me with a flourish.
In May I met these boys father when I ran over to congratulate him on his career day sign. Mr. Tee, their father was one of my 45 gloriously happy volunteer parents who came to the gym on my little career day.
I ran over and read the sign out loud in front of him. It was all about having good character traits, so you could get a job, keep a job, and the importance of getting along well with others, learning at school, etc. “That is so GREAT!” I said. I came over to say “WOW! What a profound and wonderful sign!” Mr. Tee said, “I knew you would like it. It’s what you wrote that you wanted us to say in your little E-mail.” ****. My own words. Damn. I should have recognized them, but didn’t.
So I rapidly took his attention away from my crowing by saying “I LOVED my purple feather! It was so nice of the boys.”
Mr. Tee threw back his head and laughed. “Mrs. Krutsinger,” he said. “My wife and I were trying to shop, and they would not go away, but then Jay said, ‘Can we get something for Mrs. Happy?’ (Yes, dear readers, I fear that’s my nickname at school). And Ray started jumping up and down screaming about it. My wife looked at me and we thought this is our chance, so we said, “Go find something for Mrs. K, and they tore off in two separate directions. About 40 minutes later they returned from two different directions, and they were both bringing us the exact same thing – the purple feather with the diamond on it.”
Good God. They were in US TOY and they did that!!!!!! That is amazing.
I puffed up like a peacock then and there. These kids KNEW me.

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