I've got some random fun thoughts to share today. How often do you see a man walking down the street carrying a huge rack of antlers? I witnessed this on Saturday.

In our 5th grade class, we have a section of our bulletin board designated for "Golden Moments," those times during class that we never want to forget. We have already had 13 such moments this year, moments in which a student (or the teacher) will say say or do something so memorable and/or hilarious that we have to pause everything so the class secretary can record the memory on a Post-It note for posterity. Although the kids didn't know it, I witnessed two precious "golden moments" today, and I'd like to share them with you all.

As we were reviewing for our math test, one of my students asked if it was OK for him to separate his answers with a hyphen rather than a semicolon. As is my custom, I like to bring personal tidbits into the classroom. So I told this certain boy that I thought it was "cute" that he wanted to use a hypen instead of a semicolon (my precious Mom loves to use the word “cute”), and wanting to encourage "out of the box" thinking, I told him that it was completely fine if he decided to use that system. Just before we moved on to the next problem, the girl who was sitting next to him raised her hand and asked, "Mr. Hays, am I cute? I used hypens, too." I smiled and quickly told her, "Yes, you are cute." And how adorable she and all the other students are!

The second anecdote occurred while I was on recess duty. I had wandered over toward the boys in the class to see how basketball was going, when out of the blue one of my boys excitedly asked the other, "Hey, man! Wanna freak out the girls?" In reply, the other said, "Yeah!" So both boys proceeded to roll a basketball in the mud, walk around behind some playground equipment, and were about to hold the ball out toward the girls and hear them all scream and scamper away. Their plans were thwarted when one of the girls hurt herself immediately before the girls were about to be ambushed, but I thought the boys' mischievous, yet innocent endeavor was hilarious! What is it within us guys that loves to see girls freak out? As long as there are girls to be pranked and boys to pull them off, may the great "cooties" phenomenon continue!