60. Back at work for good (6/6)

I have been back at work for I don't know how long now. It feels like ages and I am already stuck in a terribly boring routine. 

Which means I am always running late.

This morning, I had to rush through breakfast, grab a few books and piles of photocopies at random and dash out in the rain. As a) I was late and b) it was raining I decided that I would use the nearest entrance and not walk around the block as indicated by the arrows. 

I had not forgotten my pass and that kicked in the feel-good factor reminding me that I am such an organised and efficient person - just in case I had forgotten. So I pushed the card through and was looking forward to enjoy the sound of the electronic lock. Beeeeep. Door remained locked. Damnit. They've deactivated my pass for the gate closest to my home! For once they have been efficient. I did not think that possible. So I rang the bell thinking I could pass for a lost parent worried about their offspring and all the while wondering where the CCTV cameras were. I jumped as a bossy voice told me I could not use this entrance and left me standing in the pouring rain. As I was seriously considering a) heading back home to go back to bed, b) ringing again to ask her if she fancied a walk round the block in the pouring rain with me. Then I noticed a teenager coming towards the gate. He was heading in the direction of the arrows. He could open the gates and let me out. I wanted to hide from the cameras but I did not know where the cameras were so I just ended up looking stupid. Which did not faze our teenager, he looked at me, eyes half-opened, and mumbled something (Good morning? Excuse-me? Please go first? Are you an other weird English teacher? ...). I didn't ask him to 'repeat please' (I normally would, my teacher side always taking over) and as I sneaked into the grounds the same feel-good factor kicked in again. I was in. Thought the wrong door. Yet I refrained from dancing my way to the staffroom, especially as I was about to break an other rule. 

Oh no! Really sometimes you should just turn back and go home at the first hitch in your the day. 

The head and the assistant head were sheltering under the weird ugly seventies archway, the main feature of our high school due to a simple question of orientation: that's what you face whichever way you're coming from.  Anyway, why were they standing there? To let me know that I was late? But I did know that, I did not need them to tell me. I was bearing a grudge against both of them anyway so I pretended to be intensely fending the rain and I turned right and headed up the stairs straight to the classrooms.

I got into the classroom and had a mad search through the wad of papers I had brought along. When the class of Year 13 arrived, I got straight into the lesson as if we were on Term 1/Week 2. They got a bit panicky at the idea of 'work'. One of them asked me if we could play hangman. That set me off:

'Am I hearing right? Do you think I came all the way here, following arrows and jumping through hoops so that a bunch of 18-year-olds who are off to university could play hangman? ... Because if you did then you got it completely wrong.'

As I said sometimes the best thing would be to turn back and go back to bed.