The kids were being crazy, as usual. We attempted to quiet them by tactfully and vaguely explaining how Zak was hiding a machete in his pocket. Of course then they wanted to know how he could fit a machete in the hip pocket of those tight pants of his, so we groped for an answer and finally came up with he was using his "mad ninja skills' to hide it in his pocket. Yet even with this foolproof answer, they didn't believe us. They turned to Anne and I to make sure Zak was telling the truth, and wanted to know if we had seen it. Of course we assured them that we had...but that anyone under the age of 14 was physically incapable of looking upon the awesomeness of Zak's machete. ;P Finally they were somewhat satisfied, and we were able to continue with the lesson.
A bit later, Anne called me to the door adjoining our classroom to 4th grade's. She said I needed to "help Zak". I wondered what in the world Zak would need my help for, as I walked over to the door. When I got there, (I'd had to detach myself of a few children on the way), Anne asked me to go help Zak in the 4th grade classroom. (They were out, playing dodgeball. They leave after the lesson every week--very predictable) I tentatively agreed and followed him, and finally he informed me that Anne wanted us to turn over the tables. Sooooo, we did. We turned over the tables (very neatly, mind you. We put all the papers and Bibles in a small stack on the counter) and we stacked the chairs upside down. Feeling our mission accomplished, we returned to our own classroom. Of course they suspected us, but we skillfully, and without lying, denied all charges pressed upon us.
The next week both Zak and I were home sick, so that Sunday passed uneventfully with Anne alone with the kids.
But the next week, we arrived back to our classroom from worship to find all of our tables and chairs tipped over. We quickly told the kids to act normal, to just stand up the tables and chairs, and act as if nothing had happened. They were successful. As soon as we had "normally" put our room back together, we called an emergency pow-wow, during which we invented our ingenious "tents". We all used our hands to make a little "tent" over our head, and no one was allowed to speak unless everyone's "tents" were "up". And as the saying goes, "What goes in the tent, stays in the tent." During this pow-wow, we discussed:
1: our loyalties to the 3rd grade class
2: our loyalties to our teachers (i.e., Annie, Zak and me)
3: REVENGE
Zak really wanted to t.p. their classroom but Anne and I rather outed that idea, as we would have to, technically, "steal" toilet paper from the janitor's closet, and there's not much to t.p. in a room with 4 walls and 4 tables and a white board. Then, one of our kids informed us that 4th grade is in the habit of keeping licorice in their classroom. :D :D :D Which opens up just worlds of new possibilities. Whether or not the rumor was true was out of mind at the time. Finally, we outed the idea of actually eating their licorice, and THEN Zak told us his idea, which was to stick paper clips through the ends of the licorice and hang it from the ceiling!!! Which everyone thought was brilliant. For a public schooler, anyway. ;D In any event, for some odd reason unknown to myself, 4th grade never left their classroom that night. So our revenge was left unsatisfied.
The next week Zak was gone, and Anne and I told the kids that we had to wait for Zak to actually carry out our revenge, since most of it was his idea. Then, we realized that the Chili Cook-Off was coming up, in 6 days! And a plot began to form in our minds...a challenge! We had to issue a challenge--a chili-cooking challenge! So while Anne taught the lesson, I drew up a very legit challenge, which we all signed, and we presented it to the 4th grade. Well, we slid it under their door anyway. Our beautifully legit challenge was slid back under our door with "It's so on!!!" scribbled in red crayon across it. We made a copy of the challenge for 4th grade, I drew up a reciept of conformation, and our challenge was born.
As the 6 days passed, I wasted none of them. They were spent trading insults with Simon, who was one of our competitors. Well, not spent, exactly, more like, well, I traded insults with him occasionally.
Anne and I planned to get together at Anne's house on Saturday before the Chili Cook-Off to concoct our chili. Zak was invited, but his "maybe" wasn't very promising and we didn't particularly expect him. I arrived at Anne's at around 11, with all the ingredients. Now I believe would be the appropriate time to note that Anne and I had never made chili before, AND had no clue what we were doing. NO clue. In fact, Anne took a pound of hamburger we brought to put in the chili, and began to put it into the pan frozen solid, insisting that she didn't need to thaw it, she would just "steam" it. Yeah, we had NO clue what we were doing. Well, my mom left, Aunt Laurie went into the other room, and we set to work.
Once we got our hamburger cooked, we tasted it, because my mamma told us to taste lots. I don't really like hamburger particularly in the first place, so I was kinda like well may
be it's just cause I hate hamburger that I don't like it. So I asked Annie to taste it and check, and she didn't like it either. It was pretty much disgusting. But we put it in anyway. Well we seasoned it till Auntie and Uncle Dave both said it was good and they'd eat a whole bowl of it.
be it's just cause I hate hamburger that I don't like it. So I asked Annie to taste it and check, and she didn't like it either. It was pretty much disgusting. But we put it in anyway. Well we seasoned it till Auntie and Uncle Dave both said it was good and they'd eat a whole bowl of it. Finally we got it all signed in at church. As we were leaving, Lucas, our rival, brought his chili, in this shiny, big, new crockpot. We looked at Aunt Laurie's old green flowered one, and insisted to ourselves that it looked as if it had actually been used. While our spirits sank, as we remembered that Lucas was the guy who had in the past claimed he wanted to go to culinary school and become a chef. :( We knew we didn't stand a chance.
Once at the Chili Cook-Off, much later, we had tuned in to the announcements as we had heard Bailey's name announced, she had placed 2nd of 3 pies in the Junior competition. As we were listening, we were laughing and joking about how we knew we would never place, but we really just hoped that Lucas didn't, since then we would look like real dummies, having issued the challenge in the first place, and then bragged like we knew what we were doing, when in reality, we didn't. Which is when we heard our names. "Annie and Caitie Kee." We both kinda sat up, and Dave called our names again, as Mandy said, "Did they just call you???" We walked up there, and to our surprise, we hadn't even gotten 3rd! We'd placed 2nd out of 20-some traditional mild chili's. We were SOOOOOO STOKED!!!
And thus ended the chili challenge. Basically we owned 4th grade, and they know it. And have admitted it. In public forums. And we've pretty much earned ourselves bragging rights to the end of the century.
