The proper use of kitchen items

Yesterday, I subbed in a high school special ed. class. TA's were in and out for mandatory meetings, so the kids were off of their regular routine. The kids were all mobile and maybe a little higher than Keva's level. They worked on writing or arranging letters for their names, depending on their abilities.

I monitored a game of kitchen picture bingo for about an hour while the teacher stepped out. It was just me and six kids. I wondered if we would all last that long -- four young men and two young women -- playing bingo. I needn't have worried. One of the girls pulled out a picture of an item and the rest put a marker on the matching picture of their bingo card. We'd talk about each one. That's where things got interesting.

"What is that?" I asked.

"A blender!"

"What do we put in a blender?"

"Rocks!"

"We do not put rocks in a blender! You all are silly!"

Seeing where we were going with this, I asked, "What is this?"

"A refrigerator."

"What do we put in a refrigerator? A cookie tray? A person? An elephant?"

They burst into laughter. We all just cracked up. I'm hoping that no one went home that night and stuffed a little brother or sister into their refrigerator just for grins.

"Here's an ice tray. Does this go in the oven?"

Hahahahahahahahaha. I was funnier than any SNL skit. I rocked!

One boy hung out toward the back of the room deciding he was too cool to participate, but he started laughing, which egged on the main instigator of the whole laugh fest.

"Reggie," I asked, "What does the microwave do?"

Reggie pantomimed his hand getting slammed into the microwave door and cooking while he pantomimed hollering in pain. Typical high school humor. Very hilarious. Everyone thought it was great.

"That's disgusting!" I cried, which made them laugh more.

"Okay, what about this spatula? Is it for banging people over the head?"

"No, Miss Jackie. We do not use it that way," said the girl originally leading the game, and the only voice of reason.

Reggie thought that a spatula should be used exactly that way, though, and so did the rest of the boys.

We were barely able to get through all of our kitchen items before our hour was up and the teacher was back to take everyone to lunch. We had interesting scenarios for hot pads, cookie sheets, mixing bowls and toasters.

When I left that class to go on to a different class for the afternoon, I got a lot of high fives and secret handshakes that made them all laugh harder because, above all, I'm really not all that cool! But I am funny!