another casualty

It's time to hit the tables: I'm feeling different inside and want something to show for it, outside.  Clothing, well, not such a hot idea.  A belt might work, or a tie, but I'm not a big fan of either as it appears in local pomp.  So I took my dear, trusty watch--the 8th grade graduation present from my grandparents that died soon after I got here, and lasted only a week after I took it to the best watch shop I had seen at that point--to a high-end retailer and asked if they could replace the battery.

A sweet and impeccably efficient lady took the watch, named an exorbitant price, and I said, "Great."  I turned away from the evisceration, pretending to look at watches, and I heard, "Excuse me, hello?"

The battery was hooked to her electrometer and reading in the high green.  But she was pointing to something that looked horribly like a miniature battery contact floating loose.

"The battery is good.  This is your problem."

I just about fell over.

Could it have been the guy who tried to change the battery?  One of the bike wrecks?  But it was okay after the first and second, I think.  How great it would be to have somewhere to charge in and say, "This is your fault!"  

Especially after fighting through my longest teaching day with some of the worst individuals I have to deal with--usually, kids are loud and disruptive because they're bored.  Sometimes, there's an individual or two who are actively and aggressively disruptive and appear to take great joy in derailing any momentum the class builds up.  And they are utterly remorseless--when most Western jackholes would shape up after some degree of reprimand, be it verbal or getting kicked out or visiting the authorities, these kids will laugh and mock through a beating.

Oh, to talk with the parents, say, "LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!"

Oh, to address the educational system and say, "LOOK WHAT HAPPENED!"

Oh, for the option to completely disengage myself from the system and say, "THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!"

But I can't change the system, even if it wanted to change.  And even if I could communicate well enough with the kids to inspire them to change, they're already pigeonholed into set roles.  If they did actually change, they would drift around as disjointed and out of place as the little chunk floating free in my watch.   

I almost didn't wince as she used an excessively large mechanical press to rejoin the parts.  And as soon as I fought down the urge to place blame, I ran smack into, "What next?"

Could I take it to one of the repair stalls?

Wait, did I honestly just think that?

So it will go home and wait patiently (timelessly?) in a drawer until I am somewhere recognized and endorsed by a maker of timepieces "designed to be noticed."