Literary Fizzle Moment

Confession by this Shopaholic: I buy writerly swag. I’m really good about living within my means until

it involves books (if you’re read my blog, this is obvious), typewriters, or accessories involving things related. I bought a Sherlock Holmes cover for my iPhone. I have a bracelet handmade in England from a company (Jezebel Charms) that embosses book text onto brass cuffs. They specialize in Sherlock Holmes, Jane Austen, Alice in Wonderland, Dracula, and Moby Dick. Um, pretty much everything I like. I've actually considered blocking the web page from my browser.

So it’s a surprise to no one that I showed up to class yesterday looking like Miss Frizzle. Okay, Generation Ys and Millennials, do you remember Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus?

She came to class every day with a themed outfit. If the school bus was exploring the human body, her earrings were lungs and her seemingly-polka-dotted dress was really a repetition of the Ebola virus or something.

Yesterday, I wore a dress that I had made from a 1950s pattern featuring a coordination of blue and green stripes with matching blue and green typewriter keys. My earrings were typewriter keys and my necklace was a rare “Floating Shift” key that had only been featured on a few typewriters. The whole outfit was Miss Frizzle for creative writing teachers. 

I wasn’t going to say anything about Miss Frizzle, but when one of my students complimented my outfit at 1:59, I said at the 2:00 start-time, “Let’s go for a ride on the Magic School Bus!”

*crickets

To make things weirder, I said, “… in a non-drug reference way…”

*crickets

“Wow, that was inappropriate.”

*awkward giggles

That didn’t happen to Miss Frizzle. But one of the younger students gasped and said, “You ARE Miss Fizzle! OMG!” She summarily pulled out her phone and texted a friend which, of course, I told her to put away.

This is the real life of Miss Frizzle, my friends: Miss Frizzle makes you put your phone away. Four students dropped her class because she has a no late work no extra credit policy. We’re going to have fun on the Magic School Bus, but you’re not going to see anything if you don’t get on the bus. Lesson plan for the day.