Thread: Kitties in our Faculty Lounge

There was an incident involving a skunk in the heating ducts when I was in high school . . . and a cow on the third floor when I was in junior high . . . do you mean stuff like that?

I used to teach in a trailer behind a school. One day, coming back from lunch, I opened the door, and the neighbor's dog popped out. Apparently some of the kids thought it would be fun to let him in while we were gone.

I never taught there, but all the staff at my school who used to teach in the old building across town talk of the bats, rats, and cockroaches that used to run around the school. Ick.

Other than that, I have some bass and trout in my science lab right now that Fish and Game caught for us. They're not really pets, but they didn't get there on their own, either.

I had a mouse in my bookbag once. Not sure how it got there, but it was eating my mints. It ran into the hallway and was trampled in the class change traffic. At least he died with fresh breath.

We've had a dog of two hang out around the building from time to time, and sometimes they want to come inside.

I've seen turkeys and deer from my window.

My favorite was the flock of geese than landed in the bus drop off area one morning. The custodian was trying to shoo them away with a broom, and they were not happy.

Puppies, dogs, cats, kittens. They are routinely dumped around here and some of us work hard to get them new homes.

My partner teacher an I had outside opening doors and we left them open most of the year. Any number of animals used to wonder in for a free handout. We had a whole litter of puppies show up at our door once. First one, then another, then another, pretty soon there were six little furballs asleep in a pilfered milk crate. Those actually belonged to one of the families that lived near the school. They tried to follow their little owner to school and pooped out near our rooms.

Having those animals taught a lot of kids kindness towards animals in a place where there is very little thought about that sort of thing.

We've had mice, squirrels, and raccoons. I also encountered a homeless man, but that was at 5 am and makes me sound weird getting at school that early, so never mind.

We had a mean old lady in high school who had plants in her room until she made one of the "jocks" mad and, after Haloween, she found a Goat in her room and no plants ....

The senior class of '03 released 2003 crickets IN THEIR OWN HALLWAY as a class prank at the end of the year... worst prank ever. I still want to see someone set loose 9 chickens, number them 1-10 and skip a number to see how long it takes for them to call off the search.

I had a raccoon in my ceiling once. She had babies up there too. It was a mess. She ate all my fish out of my tanks, urinated in the lights, ate through the straps that help up the lights, so that they fell through the ceiling.

At the end of the day, after the children had left, you could see her walking around because the ceiling tiles would bulge (she was huge). I used to take a meter stick and poke the tiles to make her jump from from tile to tile.

She started using the crawl space in the ceiling to move around the campus - she got into the library, offices, everywhere.

Maintenance tried the "Have-a-Heart" traps to catch her, but she would open the trap door, pull out the can of tuna fish, and the shut the door.

We finally got rid of her by catching the babies and putting them outside. When she went out to get them, we sealed up the opening she was using to enter the building.