When you are a teacher especially in the middle school, there are occasions where you have to use your voice to get attention. Sometimes that means whispering at the children so they have to be very quiet to hear you and sometimes that means raising your voice to a volume that would stop traffic. I have been blessed with what some might call a traffic stopping voice. But as a teacher you can not be a one trick pony so you must learn other skills such as the, stop em in their tracks death stare, the bribe them with a Jolly Rancher move, the ever important shush sound, the finger click and my personal favorite loud whistle.

Once you retire these skills lay dormrat. But they are never far from the surface. I have been known, on occasion, to accidentally shush people in my book club, give another driver the death stare and recently during a family wedding, I whistled quite loudly to get the attention of those gathered to help the photographer get a photo. All fairly innocuous uses of my odd but useful talents.

Those who know me are usually not shocked when these talents rise to the surface, most of those shushed are forgiving and when the desired effect is a result of said talent, say a great family photo, people are even thankful.

The flip side of this coin is when the talent jumps to the surface without me even thinking. This summer my friend and I went to Italy for two weeks. Italy in August is hot, like… hot, as in the surface of the sun hot. We had spent an amazing day buzzing around Rome seeing all we could see. Late in the afternoon we retired to our hotel to take a nap and shower before dinner. As we entered the hotel, to my horror, I saw that a bus load of teenagers had just emptied into the lobby. Having spent 30 years with this type of creature I knew what a hell scape of noise we were about to enter. My experience did not betray me.

The lobby was a jumble of noise, yelling, laughing, crying, burping, you get the picture. Suddenly we realized these teens were on a school trip far from their parents and their homes. We had entered every teachers nightmare a field trip abroad. These young people were from Japan and maybe for the first time in their short lives experiencing the freedom that comes with an overnight field trip with too few chaperones.

I was super on edge but my travel mate and I managed to get to the front of the elevator queue and make it to our room without incident. After an amazing shower I was relaxing on the sofa dozing, when I heard what can only be classified as a jamboree of noise and running. Those little bastards were running up and down the hall playing a raucous game of tag.

The two of us just wanted a little respite, a nap to get us through… But these loud, obnoxious free spirits were harassing our sleepy senses. Without thinking the Middle School Teacher in me sprang to action. I stomped over to the door, threw it open and proceeded to stun, freak out, and generally terrorize a group of Japanese teens. In my loudest voice I screamed, “Hey! This is a hotel, people are trying to sleep, knock it off!” I slammed the door to accentuate my point. My travel companion was stunned for a millisecond and then burst out laughing. Much to our delight for the next hour and a half our hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

Now, my travel mate and I did get the peace and quiet we so needed, but at what cost? I suppose life is a trade off; we got our nap but a ton of Japanese teens are now trash talking the rude American hotel guest. Life is a series of trade offs; for a desperately needed nap I’ll gladly be fodder for trash talking teens. Hopefully my teacher skills are just dormant enough to pull out when needed, you know… the next time I need a nap.

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