Cooties

I had to go to my old shoebox to find the above photo of me and the 1959 sixth grade class boys who were members of our Safety Patrol. I have told this tale once before, but it applies to my story for today as much as any life less could.

By the sixth grade we were all pretty much grown up or so we thought.  Mr. Albert Morrison was my sixth grade teacher. He had fought in World War II. He was a member of the Kiwanis Clubs and got his organization to provide our safety patrol members with yellow rain slickers, yellow surplus Army surplus helmets, and white safety belts which we wore while standing guard for the younger students as they walked to and from school each day. Mr. Morrison also assisted Dr. O'Day who was our Boy Scout troop leader. Mr. Morrison took our troop up Eldorado Canyon (Colorado) on a three day  weekend camping trip. I saw him smoke. I heard him swear. He was mortal. Back then no teacher smoked or swore.

I guess every school has a kid that is a bit different. Our kid was Tommy Myers. He always looked and smelled like Pig-Pen. He was never really scrubbed clean like the other boys. He had cooties. Really.

Mr. Morrison did not like Tommy. Not one bit. One day Mr. Morrison got so mad at Tommy that he dashed from the front of the classroom to grab Tommy by his dirty little brown arm and yanked him out of his chair and dragged him through the classroom like a rag doll and kicked him out the door. We were shocked. We had never seen Mr. Morrison or any teacher ever treat a student like that. Mr. Morrison was three or four times the size of that kid. He had been in the war. He could have killed the kid. Yeah, he smoked. And he did bad!

One time Tommy gave me a twenty dollar bill as a gift for being his friend. That night I set up my mom's ironing board to iron my money so it would look crisp. My big brother saw my stacks of ones but got really bossy an demanded to know where I got that $20 bill. That got my mother in on the conversation. They both probably thought I stole it from them. I never did anything like that. I told my mother that Tommy had given it to me. She made me go over to Tommy's house to return the money to Tommy's mother. Twenty dollars in 1959 would be worth $170.60 in 2018. I would have been rich if I hadn't been such a neat freak or if Tommy hadn't tried to bribe me to like him.

Fast forward fifty-nine years to a few weeks ago. I was on another Key West Association of Realtors caravan where agents tour new additions to our MLS (multiple listing service).  A guy from my gym was standing in front of the house he rents with the listing agent. I said hello and walked inside expecting the place to be prissy clean as this guy is so anal about everything.  I nearly gagged at the smells. I quickly walked out the back door to recover. I was disgusted. I went back inside and wrote one word on the comment sheet "filthy!" and left.  Now I can't even look at the guy when I see him at the gym. He and his rental house have cooties.

I don't think the Realtor will be able to sell that place with the cootie monster living there. You can't get rid of cooties. Seriously!