Sub Notes: Seen ‘Em All

I was standing in the high school library, subbing for the librarian. “Lookin’ good!” exclaimed the high school boy as he strode by. “Nice hair!”

I looked behind me. There was no one there. “No, the person behind you,” he laughed.

I was sort of horrified. Was he being sarcastic?

He seemed like a sweet, affable kid. Even though most people my age assume teenagers say horrible things about us, I don’t think they really do that much. At least not to our faces. In fact, I'm pretty sure most of them just don’t think of us much at all. Still, it was weird to have some high school kid tell me he liked my I-have-to-be-at-work-by-6:30 AM-hair.

Yet there was something so genuine about this kid. He will be a P.R. guy someday, this one. Or an amazing salesman. I shrugged and thanked him.

It wasn’t till later that I realized it: he thought I was the woman I was subbing for! Because to a kid that age, we really do all look alike. The woman I was subbing for is about my age, and we both have brown hair. That is where the similarities stop. In fact, her hair is much longer than mine. Which explains it. He thought she’d had it cut! I wonder what he thought when “I” showed up at work with long hair again?
 

I once had a high school girl mistake me for a teacher who is about five inches taller than I am and has short, poufy, red hair. Mine is droopy, shoulder length, and brown. But to a teenager, we were both female and have the same number of limbs. Close enough! After all, we old people are pretty much interchangeable.

So I’ve thought of a new job. Whenever parents of teenagers want to run away (which I’m sure happens often), I will hire myself out (for big bucks, of course) to fill in.  I won’t have to disguise myself at all because the kids will never notice I’m a different person. 

Middle school paper that proves spelling counts: "The man fell off a 
 hor   ."