The Living Turd

So most of our kids have been sent home because a third of the school has swine flu. This has left us teachers with lots of time on our hands to return to our summer ritual of looking busy. But that doesn't mean that we won't take every opportunity to openly do nothing as long as we can do it together.

This led Kyoto-Sensei (this means vice-principal) to take a stroll around the school grounds. She returned with a dust pan and on that dust pan was an object which looked distinctly like a turd. "What the heck is this?" She said to us in Japanese. The gym sensei, English sensei, Kyoto sensei and I all stared at it a moment when suddenly it moved its little turd head to look at us.

"WHAAAAAA! CREEPY" screamed our 6ft, 26 year old, in shape gym sensei as he launched himself to the other side of the island of desks. His reaction was ridiculous. "Scary! What the heck is that thing? It's so gross and creepy!!" he rambled on in Japanese. After examining it for a while and poking it safely with the butt of a pen, Kyoto sensei trotted off with the living turd to show the principal. He also didn't know what it was so she came back to us.

"It's a caterpillar"I said, but no one could understand what that was, so they continued to poke it until they discovered the turd's head was actually its butt. Frustrated that no one could understand me, I took to the internet to find a picture. Luckily, gym-sensei was way ahead of me and screaming about creepy bugs like a school girl all the while.

"Yuck! What is this thing?! Ugh, it's so creepy. SCARY SCARY SCARY!!!!" (Show some samurai dignity for crying out loud.)

Science sensei came back to the teachers' room and we showed him the moving turd. He poked and prodded the now thoroughly harassed moving feces. We finally determined that the poop was indeed some sort of caterpillar, but its ongoing torment caused the turd to become far more animated, and it was rapidly moving around the piece of paper we had it on, in constant danger of taking a plummeting fall onto the floor.

Gym sensei had since left, since he was tired of the other teachers harassing him with the bug, since we all thought it was funny to see him freak out. We had took over his desk as the turd's stomping ground and the other teachers commented on how funny it would to plant little Turdy in gym sensei's gym bag.

It was getting more and more difficult to control the poop, and that's when it happened. Little Turdy made a run for the edge and I reached over, picked him up, and moved him inland to safety.

Everyone screamed, and then gasped as I put Turdy down on the desk. "Wow, Eliza is such a strong woman." "Ew, I can't believe she picked it up! She's stronger than me." "Wow, maybe it's because she's a foreigner." When gym sensei came back they all told him of my feat and he wailed again at how gross that thing is and how on earth could I bring myself to pick it up. I must be really strong. (It's ONLY a caterpillar for crying out loud.)

Turdy is now living in a bottle in the teachers room. We feed him leaves and give him water, and whenever someone feels like it, they pick up the bottle and torture gym sensei some more. But as a result of my picking up the caterpillar they have started to bring my other creatures to see if I will pick them up and handle them too. Today, I received a small black lizard. It was actually pretty cute. The same wailing of disbelief ensued as I let the little guy run around my hands.

I don't understand how people in a country that used to think ritual suicide was a really great way to defend your honor could be afraid of a little lizard and a turd like caterpillar. It's just kind of silly.