just another day at dunder mifflin, i mean preschool.

it's teacher appreciation week.

today's prize:

my boss came into my classroom around 10 and said "today is teacher spa day!" and sent me up to the front of the school with a few other teachers.

to the wide open room where everyone entering and exiting the school could see what we were doing.

what we were doing:

we entered this room where some chairs were set up, and the lights were out. there was a table full of "spa products." and there was someone there to give us our "spa treatments."

and she was wearing a shirt that said "got stress?"

pause, and read that all again. get the proper visual.

we sat down in these chairs and she put some warm thing around our necks to help us relax, and then put these cold things on our eyes to help us...not see? and turned on some "soothing" music that i am not even able to describe.

at this point, i was feeling mostly ok. i don't consider anything done with my coworkers to be "relaxing" but...sitting in a dark room, with some quietness, and no screaming children...yeah. ok. i can do that. this is cool.

and then, without warning, this woman silently wheels up to my chair and grabs my hands and starts massaging them. it was startling. some people might like that, but when you remember i'm in the middle of a school, at my job, it's...slightly more awkward.

when the massaging is over, we take the eye things off and she begins to do the spa treatments.

i mean sales pitches.

that's right. she came not to appreciate our three star efforts in teaching, but to get us to buy her products.

i saw her list of featured products and there was a "foot massage" product on the list.

if you know me well, you know...no way is that happening. nobody touches my feet. you aren't Jesus, and this isn't the Last Supper.

luckily, there wasn't time.

so 20 or so minutes later i went back to my class. and i thought...that was weird, but also kind of awesome. i just got a random break in the middle of the day. that was a nice thing for my boss to set up.

it was also nice because i had a killer-headache-soon-to-be-migraine going on, and screaming kids don't help with that. but dark rooms do.

so lunch time rolls around, and it's an actual migraine. i'm not being dramatic. we were trying to put the kids down for a nap, and i couldn't even do that. i was laying on the floor with them, because if i sat up i felt like i was going to throw up or pass out. it was past the time i normally get my break, so i called my boss and asked if i could be the next one in line for a break, because i felt really bad and needed to get some medicine. and she says:

"the spa day was your break. i forgot to tell you. if you needed to do anything else, you were supposed to do it then."

thanks, michael scott. for a moment there, you seemed awesome.

and i said "well...i'm really sorry...but no one told me that, and if i don't get some medicine i'm going to throw up."

she let me go to the store really fast, and i popped some excedrin migraine.

excedrin is magical.

an hour later, i felt like i never even had one. usually it only takes half an hour, but i was at work so it took longer.

magical.

unrelated:

when i got off work, i called my amazing grandparents. because my grandpa blacked out in walgreens the other day and i wanted to check on him.

three quotes today.

my grandma was telling me that she stayed in the hospital with him all night, even though the chairs were uncomfortable. and i said i bet he was really glad she was there. and she said:

"well we've been married almost 69 years, and you know what, we still hold hands."

they are everyone's dream marraige. no doubt about it.

then she asked me if i wanted any money, and i said "well you can send me some if you want, but you don't have to." and she said "honey, these are the best years of your life! i'm going to send you a little pocket change."

and in closing:

when we were about to hang up the phone, there was this short dialogue between the two of them that i know i'll remember forever. she told me to hold on, and yelled to my grandpa across the house "what do you want to tell allison??" and i could hear him yell "tell her i love her!"