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A Grim Fairy Tale
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Beware the Ides of Maaaarch
By Sister Grim
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 Once upon a time
it was almost really and truly going to be spring in the city of Chicago,
located in the sorry cheapskate state of Ill-A-Noise, and the membersheep
of the CTEwe were looking forward to blue skies, buds on the trees, and
Spring Break, which could arrive none too soon.
Maaarch was always
a fun month, what with St. Paaatrick’s Day, St. Josephs’s Day
and St. Pulaaaski Day —
“Wait just a minute,
there,“ scolded Nancy Naive, darling of the largely defunct Pee-Yu
Caucus of the CTEwe, party of the recently-deposed leadersheep. “There
is no Saint Pulaaaski,” she bleated in disdain.
“I disagree,”
said Millicent Militant.
“Me, too,” added her friend Ewenice, still Toonice for her own
good.
“Oh, really?”
“Aaaabsolutely!! Any Revolutionary War hero for whom there is a legal
holiday, and who was born during a school month, is a saint in my book.
So there,” concluded Millicent.
And once upon a time,
Maaarch was also famous for the political pandemonium known as THE PRIMARY
ELECTION, wherein all of the renowned aspects of Chicago politics were
displayed. It was sort of a Maardi Gras of misinformation and malice,
as the candidates spent considerable time and mammoth amounts of money
attacking one another, although they were all, in fact, from the same
party. The casual observer was sometimes left wondering if anyone was
worth a vote, while the membersheep of the CTEwe were wrestling with somewhat
scary spectra of Our Pal Paul, aka Paul Vallas, Emperor-designee, winning
statewide election, receiving votes based largely upon paid television
misinfomercials citing his fabulous feats as CEO of da Chicago public
schools.
“Such as?”
asked Ewenice.
“Transforming
the world’s worst school system into one of the finest; changing
each and every student into a well-behaved, high-achieving genius; turning
a devastating deficit into a giant surplus; cutting physical education
classes for high school juniors and seniors and eliminating recess for
the younger students; privatizing school services, like the lunchroom,
(resulting in the questionable benefit of smaller amounts of thoroughly
unappetizing food. Maybe a blessing in disguise?); and, most importantly,
and with the enthusiastic participation of the former leadersheep, removing
all the remaining teeth of the CTEwe,” said Millicent.
The heavy little hand
of Hizzoner, da Mare, was also in much evidence as all the major Chicago
newspapers endorsed Our Pal Paul, even though his opponents were credited
with either having more experience or being better politicians.
“Those Vallas
commercials are awful,” said Millicent.
“Oh, I think they are very informative,” retorted Nancy. “Besides,
if he is the Governor, won’t that be better for our school system?
Won’t we get special treatment since he knows what we need?”
“I don’t
know about that,” said Ewenice.
“Right. We didn’t
get much when he was our CEO, did we?”
Just then, Scott Skeptic,
journalism teacher-in-exile, walked in. “Get what?” he asked.
“Oh, it’s
you,” said Nancy. “I was just talking about the special things
we got once Our Pal Paul took over the schools.”
“Nancy thinks
that Our Pal Paul will make a great Governor,” added Millicent.
One could almost see
the wheels turning. Scott simply smiled as he said, “No, I don’t
think so. Some of us have already gotten more than we ever wanted, courtesy
of the Office of Re —”
“You’re always
going on about that. What is it?” demanded Nancy. “You know,
Tom said you guys would keep on complaining about every little thing you
could think of. As usual, he was right.”
“You know,”
began Scott, “just because you haven’t personally been subjected
to something as demoralizing as Re-engineering or Re-organization or Re-constitution
or Re-form, doesn’t mean you can’t grasp the concept.”
He looked at her as she stared at him, and he added, “maybe not.”
“Never mind,”
she snapped. “I have no time for this silliness. I have a meeting
to prepare for.”
Millicent and Ewenice
and Clara Clark, the clerk, exchanged glances. Les Izmore, one of the
other teachers, and Scott also looked perplexed.
“Who studies for
a meeting?” asked Ewenice.
“It’s our
monthly meeting,” said Nancy. “It’s very important.”
“Probably the
monthly Meeting of the Malcontents,” muttered Scott. “They discuss
methods to disrupt regularly organized meetings. They usually congregate
at an expensive eatery on Erie.”
Nancy was visibly shocked.
“How did you know that?”
“We have our sources,”
said Scott. “So what letter are you up to now? Have you finished
with ‘A’?”
“A?” she
echoed.
“As in annoy,
antagonize, argue, or agitate?” prodded Scott. “How about ‘B’?”
“B?”
“As in bother,
burden, berate, belittle, or just plain bug? Or maybe you’ve progressed
to ‘C’. Well, have you?”
Nancy was growing very
uncomfortable. “Well what?”
“How far have
you gotten on the list? ‘D’? For distract, divide, depress,
distress, disturb, divert, or maybe disunite?”
Millicent joined in.
“How about ‘I’? Interrupt, irritate, interfere, intimidate?
How long do you plan to keep this up?”
“That’s none
of your business. You’re the enemy,” pronounced Nancy.
“We’re all
in the same ewenion!! How can we be enemies??” yelled Scott, who
rarely lost his temper.
Nancy began, “Tom
said —”, but a warning glare from Scott silenced her.
But, unfortunately,
once upon a time there were some very contentious membersheep at the monthly
House of Dull-a-Gates meetings, and they persisted in disrupting the proceedings.
Many of them had limited vocabularies, consisting of “Point of order!!”
and “Point of personal preference!!”, performed regularly while
waving papers in the air or pushing other waiting delegates out of the
way.
Sad to say, it wasn’t
difficult to aggravate the membersheep, due primarily to the persistent
parking problems at Plungers Hall. After working at school all day, dealing
with students, administrators, parents and other assorted cast members,
most membersheep were tired by the time they arrived. Driving around for
another 45 minutes trying to find parking did nothing to improve their
mood. Consequently, a few well-placed glares or a surreptitious shove
— frequently administered by someone no longer in the trenches —
oops, classroom — kept things unpleasant at the microphones. Teddy
“The Obsequious Toady” Mallas always managed to worm his way
to the front of the line, demanding special, albeit undeserved, consideration
for himself, implying that the new CTEwe leadersheep was making decisions
without his input. Which they were, since his input was neither required
nor desired.
Meanwhile, back at
the campaign, questions were beginning to emerge. Some concerned Our Pal
Paul, who was allegedly involved in awarding no-bid contracts for school
bus service to family friends. And then there was the matter of him bragging
about the deficit he turned into a surplus.
“If there’s
a surplus, then why are they making all those cuts at the Castle on Clark?”
asked Ewenice.
“What cuts?”
“What surplus??”
“According to
news reports generated by the Big Baaad Bored, 80 positions are to be
eliminated, to save money.”
“Mostly consultant-
and consultantesses,” added Scott.
“That’s a
shame. What will happen to them? Where will they go?” asked Nancy,
naively.
“Probably to administrative
positions in the new small schools.”
Nancy laughed. “That’s
silly. Why would small schools need more people? Isn’t that a contradiction
in terms?”
“You miss the
point,” said Millicent. “Small schools are designed so that
the students are divided into smaller groups; but each group has its own
administrators and counselors. Consequently, there is a need for more
administrators per school.”
“That’s very
confusing.”
“No, it’s
tradition,” said Scott.
But, once upon a time,
the question would not go away. What if there really was a surplus, as
Our Pal Paul kept proclaiming?
“Dis can be a
disaster,” yelled Li’l Hizzoner, da Mare, as he paced around
his office on da Fift’ floor of City Hall. “Tell Paul to shuddup
about dat surplus before da CTEwe gets wind of it. Evvyboddy has to think
dere’s a deficit. Evvyboddy!! Got it? Good!!” he pounded on
his desk. As alarmed acolytes scurried around, he added, “Now make
sure Paul gets da message!!”
Once upon a time the
membersheep of the CTEwe continued to discuss the primary, and the famous
Chicago tradition of “V-E-V-O”.
“What’s that?”
asked Nancy, obviously more naive than anyone thought.
“Just one of our
local slogans. ‘Vote early, vote often’,” said Millicent.
“Isn’t that illegal??” Nancy asked while everyone else
laughed.
“You know, the
primary elections remind of your favorite topic, Scott,” observed
Millicent.
“What do you mean?”
“It seems that
the election is a lot like the Space-case exams.”
“How so?”
Millicent laughed as
she pointed out the obvious. “No matter how you read it, there are
no correct answers — only wrong ones.”
“Oh,” they
said. “Oh, I see.”
“O.I.C.”
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