Spiders and Seventh Grade

It's not very often that I give over this blog to the "Big Kids" at my school...the seventh and eighth graders who have a music class with me once a week.  However, today is one of those days!  At the time it was rather embarrassing...but now it's just hilarious!

To set the scene:

Music Class.  End of the Day.  Practicing for the Christmas Concert.

Seventh Grade Girl, a Drama Queen by nature, keeps jumping out of her chair, squealing. Over and over again.

What does a teacher do?  Get frustrated!  And, of course, try to find out what is going on.  She informs me of the following offense.  The seventh grade boy beside her keeps dangling a spider right in front of her.  I tell him to knock it off, tell her to calm down, we carry on.

Only, it doesn't end.  She keeps right on squealing and jumping.  Frankly, I've had enough.  I march over to the boy, fully believing that he is just teasing her, and that there isn't a spider.  I extend my hand and insist that he give me whatever it is that he has.  The whole class freezes.  What will happen?

He opens his hand and drops the item onto my palm.  I look down and scream, tossing the offending item, a brown spider, as far as I can, then order him to "go get it and GET RID OF IT!"

He starts to laugh.  And laugh.  And laugh some more.  The child could hardly breathe as he walked over, picked up the spider...and begins to unravel it.  Yes, the spider was nothing more than some brown thread, tangled and crumpled to resemble a spider.

The class erupts.  Chaos ensues.  Even the "good kids" are just DYING!  I, too, begin to laugh.  What else could I do?

Fortunately, the class was nearly over.  Fifteen minutes of giggles and requests to "do it again, Miss Gerber, in SLOW MOTION!" with helpful reminders of exactly what I  had looked and sounded like was quite enough.

But truly, if I'd thought of it and had thought that I could pull it off?  *sigh*

Ahhhh...the power of suggestion.  And spiders.  And Seventh Grade Boys.