How Was Your Day? by Emily O’Shea

My FaceTime call rings, my sister answers. I ask the question I will certainly regret: ‘How was your day?’. Oh, the joys of being a primary school teacher. She says how she needs it to be the weekend (baring in mind it was only Tuesday). One day she’s going to flip – they just don’t listen to her. She says she wishes they’d all behave like ‘good little Austin’. She’s on a rant and she isn’t going to stop. The situation is made worse as it is only a few weeks into the first term of the school year, meaning there are thirty new four-year olds trying to get used to a new routine. With a clenched jaw, rolling eyes and a deep… very deep breath, she complains that one of them had gone on a biting rampage, another one had knocked over all the paint and another one or five were tugging on her jumper begging for attention. I attempt to reply but immediately she was back in with ‘and that all happened within the first twenty minutes’!

She props me up on the side of her drawers against the mirror. That’s when I know this is going to be a long conversation, or more like listening session for me. Her face lights up when I ask her about Austin and Hannah. ‘Oh, they’re a god send! They make all this worth it’. This happiness doesn’t last long however, as she requests I don’t even get her started on the germs that the children are swimming in. They cough, sneeze and snort all over everyone and everything. As this is said she pauses and interrupts herself with a sneeze followed by a phlegm filled cough. ‘Great,’ she says in a sarcastic tone ‘I’m ill too!’            ‘Bless you’ I squeal, secretly happy this encounter is happening over technology as otherwise within three to four working days I would be contaminated too. She says how she continuously tells them to cover their mouths but it goes through one ear and out the other and instead they cough everywhere on purpose. She says they wipe their runny noses all over their hands and uniforms, don’t wash their hands and then grab a book, pencil or toy and smother it in their snot. ‘Ewww,’ I reply with a sour expression on my face. I’ve always wanted to be a primary school teacher but there are days, like this one, where she makes this seem less appealing.  

Eventually she stops to ask ‘oh, by the way, how was your day?’