I’ve been laser-focused for the past month on putting the finishing touches on my latest adapted novel, George Orwell’s 1984. It was a tough adaptation, and the longest text I’ve tackled to date. The finished product was 170 pages. In addition, I was stupid enough to ALSO assign research essays to both my juniors and seniors at the same time. The juniors completed the Conspiracy Theories essay; the seniors completed the Music and Society essay. And I got to grade allllllllll of them. In order to task-avoid the grading, I went ahead and created an adapted version of Liam O’Flaherty’s The Sniper, pretty much just for shits and grins. You know how you get SO TIRED you don’t even realize you’re tired until you fall asleep in the middle of reading The Great Gatsby aloud to your students? Yeah. I know how it feels to be that tired. And to fall off a barstool into a trash can. Allegedly.

And then came the annual canned food drive! Which student council sponsors and organizes. Oh, yeah. I’m the student council sponsor, too.

That’s when I HIT THE WALL.

Then proceeded to stare at it for, like, an entire 90 minute planning period.

I was doooonnnne.

I needed to do literally ANYTHING that wasn’t reading or writing. I think the kids knew I was in a weakened state. They struck.

This year’s winning grade level in the food drive gets to leave school 15 minutes early on the day leading into Thanksgiving Break. Our parking lot is a dumpster fire, so getting to be the first out for a week off school is GOLD. My seniors wanted to win. They devised a plan.

Birthday cake kits are in huge demand at our local food pantry, so they were the highest-point item in the food drive. By the time I realized all my senior classes had blocked off a class period to assemble cake kits, the Signup genius was already circulating. Like I could say no? Parents were already dropping off cake mix. PTSA was posting their praise on Instagram. Better just to go with it.

Besides, I was freaking exhausted.

The kids’ motives weren’t the most noble: getting to leave school early and “handing the sophomores their asses this year,” but today was one of the best days I’ve had at school in a while. Ultimately, a lot of kids are going to have birthday cakes this year, and watching the whole class sitting in a circle talking and laughing after the kits were finished was pretty great. The bonding was worth sacrificing a class period. Besides, it’s not like I was on my A-game today anyway.

And the food drive? It’s gonna be a bloodbath. The sophomores won’t even know what hit them.

Keywords: charity, class project, group bonding, new products, stress, stress management