It happened.
I was at the park with the family and the cell phone rang. I answered it and heard this young girl's voice say, "Mr. Harmless?" ... only it was spoken with a southern accent.
Now there is more than one thing wrong with this. The first this is that I have moved, so anybody that knows me as, "Mr. Harmless." is miles away. The second thing is that this is summer time, and everybody that knows me well, knows that in the summer I am not a teacher! The third this is that it was a southern accent.
After about 10 seconds of trying to remember whether or not I was actually "Mr. Harmless" I very weakly replied, "Yes?"
You see, I knew that it had happened. This was my first contact with a new student... and I was jolted back into the onrushing reality of the end of the summer.
I was hoping she would then say, "... just checking, we won't bother you again until the end of August!" But that didn't happ...
Striving to be a Samwise Gamgee in a world of Smeagols.