Our induction ceremony (we can’t say initiation. ) was a symbolic trip through the underworld, beginning with a barefoot walk in the river Styx, a pan full of ice cubes and marshmallows.

There is an association manual with suggestions for the ceremony, including handing  the initiate ( oops, inductee) the eye of the Cyclops. A troublemaker mother organized the event.  Same mom who provided the blue eyeshadow.

What blue eyeshadow? Go back and read all the older posts right now or you’ll have them for breakfast.

“I wasn’t sure where I could get enough eyeballs for everyone, but I thought about a wholesale butcher shop”

Her son commented,“ Yeah, but when they take off the blindfold and see what they have in their hands they’ll freak out and throw it”

Me: “Wait a minute. Aren’t these like, Halloween candy gum eyeballs? We’re using REAL EYEBALLS?”

“Well, “  she said, “the manual  says eyeballs, and I’m not sure I can get enough. They must have sheep or cow eyeballs at a butcher shop”

I envisioned students screaming and hurling real eyeballs into my classroom walls and then the slime not being totally cleaned up.

( It sure wasn’t going to be me cleaning them up. Suppose they watched you while you scraped them off?) The eventual smell of rotting eyeballs….I couldn’t even look at a disembodied eyeball, much less go buy a bag of them and use them to torment adolescents.

I love this woman.

But we used plastic.