Here it is, my all-time favorite Sesame Street song, which proved it was possible to smile and cry at the same time.

            A few days ago, we went to look at a house. The owner greeted us at the door and requested we put sanitary foot covers, the kind surgeons wear, over our shoes so we wouldn’t scuff the floors.

            The house was beyond immaculate. I didn’t even see a stray dust mote. The owner led us proudly room to room, pointing out the “buttery finish” of the oil paint he’d selected for the dining room walls, and the gleaming perfection of the brass wall sconces he’d reclaimed from the basement and painstakingly polished to their original luster. Our real estate agent kept gushing that she couldn’t get over how pristine the place was.

            “This house was built in the thirties, and it’s only changed hands three times,” the owner replied. “And, my wife and I are like both sets of previous owners; no dog and” -he looked over at Micah- “no offense, but no kids. Dogs and kids really do a number on a house. This place was in top condition when we bought it, and we’ve kept it that way.”

            We saw the rest of the house- the carefully color-coded clothing in the closets, the strategically placed pillows on the sofas- and after thanking the owner, walked outside.

            “Wow, “ I said. “That house is beautiful.”

            Micah nodded. “Yeah. But you know what it could really use?”

            “What?”

            “A dog and some kids,” Micah said, and we got back in the car and drove home.

          Last night, Mariah Carey was a guest on Jay Leno’s show, which was only remarkable in that I can’t remember ninety-nine percent of what she said. I recall that she seemed mildly addled, and I think she was trying to promote her latest CD, movie, and fragrance, but in terms of relative importance, her sales pitch ran a distant second to her breasts.

          Ms. Carey’s breasts were remarkable in their spatial mass and globularity. The dramatic tension they created as they threatened to topple the inadequate confines of her low-cut dress was almost unbearable. The truth is, Ms. Carey’s breasts did not merely upstage her; if they had not been attached to her chest wall, it would have been entirely possible for her to leave the stage without anyone even noticing.

          I feel bad saying this, because Ms. Carey seemed rather sweet and surprisingly awkward. I suspect she didn’t realize that her breasts were undermining her marketing strategy. I bet she trotted those babies out front and center, like they were her best friends, not realizing that two fleshy protuberances that can’t sing or act might actually prove more interesting than she.

          It’s no reflection on Ms. Carey; I sincerely doubt Meryl Streep could’ve outperformed those breasts. But my advice would be, if you want people to buy your CD, see your movie, or wear your fragrance, don’t enlist your boobs to run interference.

          Yesterday, I was in Stop and Shop. I was in a hurry so instead of going to a regular check-out lane with a cashier, I went to the self-checkout.

          I’d already scanned a bunch of stuff when I figured that maybe I should put a couple of items in a bag on the shelf at the end of the counter, so the loading area didn’t get too full. I’d no sooner done this when a store clerk came over to help me bag. I thanked him and kept scanning when suddenly, I saw him make a lunging movement. He looked at me, his expression impossible to read. “Ma’m, your soda is okay, but your tomato sauce isn’t,” he announced. I looked past the end of the counter and saw a bottle of soda rolling around on the linoleum and a jumbo jar of Ragu, which had crashed to the floor and exploded into a widely splattered pool of sauce.

          “Oh, man,” I said to the clerk. “How did that even happen?” He hesitated, which made me immediately think I might be to blame. After all, I hadn’t seen what actually transpired. “Did I do that?” I asked, just as the manager came over.

          “Kyle!” barked the manager. “What did you do this time?”

          This time? Now I knew that for Kyle, this type of event was not unprecedented, pertinent information I could really have used ten seconds earlier. I saw a look wash over Kyle’s face. Calculation? Relief? “The lady had a little accident with her sauce,” he told the supervisor. “Looks like a crime scene, doesn’t it?” he chuckled softly, at the same time furtively glancing around for witnesses.

          Now I was on to him. I looked at the ledge where the sauce and the soda had been placed, which was deep and perfectly capable of holding them, but by now, Kyle had taken my moment of self-blame and was sprinting with it. Plus, Kyle wasted no time in telling everyone- the guy who came to mop up the mess, the sour People’s Bank Manager at the front of the store, the little brat who kept trying to step in the sauce- that it was my fault. Kyle, a guy whose job security rested on finding a ready and willing scapegoat, had lucked out.

          I let the whole thing play out, because the story had built up a momentum that felt unstoppable but essentially harmless. After all, I had far less to lose than Kyle. I fought off the urge to expose Kyle’s deception and instead, apologized to the guy mopping up the floor. He looked up at me, and in that moment, I knew the truth: not only was I innocent, but my innocence was less important than cleaning the tomato sauce off the floor.

          Around ten years ago, there was scandal in our town involving the Superintendent of Schools. He was stopped under suspicion of DUI and when he stepped out of his car, he was dressed in women’s clothing. The local newspaper had a field day describing his outfit: a gold lamé blouse, ripped pantyhose, a tight black skirt, blue eyeshadow, smeared red lipstick, and a string of fake pearls. His mug shot in this outfit was released and circulated. The initial shock was swiftly followed by angry calls for him to step down from his post. At first, he didn’t want to leave, but the sentiment against him was so strong that he finally agreed on the condition he could still receive his pension and a cash settlement, citing alcoholism as a disability. Needless to say, this created an uproar in town.

          The story unfolded over October and by October 31^st had climaxed into a homemade costume bonanza. Sam and I went to a Halloween party that year with over a dozen guys from the neighborhood in gold lamé blouses, blue eyeshadow, and pearls. We all thought this was marvelously clever; nasty and amusing all at once. If one could overlook how tortured this man was, and ignore his humiliation and despair, it was easy to cast him as a pathetic pariah, deserving of our collective scorn and ridicule. He was a man we trusted with our kids’ welfare, and our tax dollars! He had a wife and children of his own. What was he thinking?

          It was a few years later, after he had died of health problems related to his alcoholism, that I started thinking back on that Halloween, and realized that the dark side of Halloween isn’t about goblins and witches. The dark side is what lurks beneath the callousness that inspires us to take a tormented soul and turn him into a costume party joke. He was a man, with a wife and children of his own. What were we thinking?

          We had an author come visit our classroom today. He writes fantasy books, a genre wildly popular with middle school students, and he was able to converse freely about trolls, wizards, and dark magic. It made me happy to see the kids so enthusiastic, but it was as if they were speaking some foreign language. I stood there, nodding politely, but utterly clueless.

          Then one of my students told the visiting author that I was a writer, too. After he finished his presentation to the class, he started talking to me in Writerese, a language I hadn’t used in over a year, but it came back to me instantly, and in no time, words like “literary agent” and “royalties” were rolling off my tongue.

          We’d only been talking for a couple of minutes when he left for another presentation in another classroom. I felt a fleeting impulse to grab his tweed jacket and plead, take me with you, can’t you see, I am one of you. I could taste the luxury of mornings in front of my computer, reflecting, writing, editing. But then two students came up to me and started describing their Halloween costumes and I slid back into place, my regret fading faster than the visiting author’s tweed jacket retreating down the hall. I’m not sure if this is progress, or resignation.

          Kali is an ancient, multi-armed Hindu goddess of time and change. She is also revered as Bhavatarini, or Redeemer of the Universe.

          Looking at this flier, it appears that the marketing folks at Bed, Bath & Beyond were acting on an inspiration to bring Kali into the 21^st century, replacing her aforementioned powers with the ability to simultaneously operate multiple kitchen gadgets.

          I can’t tell you the precise length of time a human being can endure karaoke, but I can tell you this: it is less than two hours. Way less. I can also tell you that the time limit is even shorter for seventh graders who aren’t on stage pretending to be Miley Cyrus. I can also tell you that if you thought the lyrics to The Thong Song were egregious and disgusting when you were singing along to it alone in your car several years ago because it was catchy, they are far worse when printed out and displayed on a massive movie screen. I can tell you that no adult should ever be asked by a twelve-year-old what, exactly, are dumps like a truck, anyway? I can also tell you that the next time someone suggests a karaoke night, I will not respond, hey, great idea, that sounds like fun.

          This week was pretty proud of myself. I was handling everything at school so well! I was lending a hand when asked, grading my quizzes and tests in a timely manner, operating, in general, like a well-oiled machine.

          Yesterday I walked into school, feeling supremely confident I was taking on, and would continue to take on, every challenge that came my way. I taught my seniors in the library tech center, which went well; next came my free period, so I made myself a cup of tea and went to the teacher’s lounge to prepare for the next class. It wasn’t long after that that the middle school dean came looking for me because I’d totally messed up my schedule. It was Thursday, not Wednesday, and I had a roomful of impatient seventh graders waiting for me, for whom I was ten minutes late.

          Just like that, the climate changed. I’d been deluding myself. I was not a good teacher, in fact, I was a crappy teacher, quite possibly the worst teacher ever. As elevated as my opinion about myself had been earlier, that’s how low it had fallen now.

          A bit later, I went to study hall- which I knew I was not proctoring because I was now obsessively checking the schedule posted above my desk every few minutes-and I saw the kids were there unsupervised. The teacher who was supposed to proctor was nowhere in sight. I covered for him, and when he came running in, apologizing for his mistake, I told him not to worry. The truth is, I was grateful for the opportunity to attempt to even slightly redeem myself.

          So, yesterday was a reminder that I’m not a well-oiled machine; far from it. I am light years away from perfect, but the good news is I am human, and even better, I’m not alone.

          Yesterday, I went to the soup kitchen with four kids from school, including Micah. My job was to chop vegetables for a salad while the boys were given sixty pounds of green beans to wash, de-stem and slice.

          After around fifteen minutes, they formed pairs to see who could slice the beans fastest. There were flying stems and the rapid-fire staccato of blades against cutting boards, plus a whole lot of hurled insults and cheers of triumph. I told the boys to keep it down. One of the full-time cooks just smiled. “They’re just having fun.” He had a point, which was that fun and service aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. And in the end, the important part was that that night, people would be enjoying my good and earnest salad along with a side of green beans, heavy on the laughter.