Jeans

I love wearing jeans! They are so comfortable and relaxing. I just feel happy wearing my jeans. They are definitely my apparel-of-choice on Saturdays and any school days that I attend workshops or staff development activities. And I love the last Friday of the month when teachers can wear jeans to school. All the teachers know I'll try almost anything to get another "jean day," so at our parent-teacher conference dinner this past Tuesday I asked our principal if we could wear jeans the day after conferences. Although the answer was no, she did give the okay to a jean day next Friday (the last Friday of November that we'll be at school).

So I was a little surprised when a couple teachers whispered to me on Thursday that they were going to wear jeans Friday and encouraged me to do so as well. The thought was "if everyone wears them, our principal can't say anything." After all, we couldn't all get in trouble. Besides, it's been an extremely busy couple of weeks dealing with report cards, conferences, and extra curriculum meetings. It sounded like a great idea to me, except I had specifically asked about jeans and was told no.

Thursday night I even had a phone message from a teacher, reminding me about jean day because she knew how much I love wearing jeans and she didn't want me to feel left out. I was torn about what to wear: do I wear the jeans along with other teachers, wear regular "school" clothes and bring jeans along (just in case it's really all right), or disregard the message.

The other issue involved laundry. Since I'd been gone every night the last couple of weeks I actually was caught up on laundry but all the clean clothes were sitting in laundry baskets in the basement after coming out of the dryer and most everything needed to be ironed. I really wasn't in the mood to do any ironing on Thursday night.

So, I wore regular school clothes to work yesterday, thinking that maybe a few brave teachers would be wearing jeans. I was actually quite surprised to find all the other teachers in jeans. I wondered if our principal would notice and, if so, would she be upset. Some teachers were surprised to find me not wearing jeans, but I explained I didn't feel right about it since we hadn't had permission.

But then, at our morning break time, the principal asked to see all teachers for a brief meeting. For a few seconds I wondered if it was about jeans and was glad I hadn't caved in (although I was the only one). I didn't really want the other teachers to get in trouble, but I was glad I wasn't wearing them. When all the teachers were assembled, our principal came in and began talking about how disappointed she was that all the teachers were breaking the school dress code by wearing jeans. She sounded really upset and mentioned that she should send them all home, but instead she was going to ... reward Melanie for not wearing the jeans. Huh???

It turns out the whole thing was a joke on me that they all concocted the day before at staff devotions while I was outside on recess duty. They wanted to see if they could get me to wear jeans - most were convinced I would wear them and the plan was for the principal to call only me in her office for breaking the dress code. The principal was in on the whole thing! In fact, she was trying to figure out a Plan B that morning when she saw I wasn't wearing them. In the end, she gave me a certificate for my own Jean Day sometime in the year and I can also choose an extra Jean Day! So I guess it paid to obey the rule!

I'm definitely looking forward to Jean Day next Friday! (Now, if I could just get pizza and chocolate for lunch, the day would be perfect.)