March 24, 2013
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Noses
When you are in the middle of a fight…dang. The adrenaline is racing and life slows down…and then it is over and you are thinking how dumb that was, but it really was entertaining and exciting, and the one thing you want to tell everyone about.
So we had one. A fight. One boy throws gum at another. The other boy throws it back, and it gets in his (gumboy’s) hair. Gumboy talks about the other boy’s (momma’s boy) mom and walks over to me. I start trying to get the gum out, wishing there was peanut butter in Brazil. Momma’s boy comes over with thunder in his eyes and I start pushing the two of them apart. Gumboy is much smaller and doesn’t want to fight anyways. Momma’s boy is throwing punches and one glazes my nose. Time goes by slowly and I am thinking—“Here I am again.”
I stand like Samson, trying to keep the two boys apart. Gumboy starts hiding behind me. Mamma’s boy has three smaller boys trying to hold him back. I get gumboy into a locked room where everyone else can deal with momma’s boy and I can try to remove some gum.
My nose hurts.
I talked to each of the boys. The other workers had never delt with this kinda thing before. They calmed down really nicely, gum boy was scared of mamma’s boy, and mamma’s boy was sorry he hit “Titia’s” nose. I told them they were both kicked out and we could never have anything like that happen again. They were both to blame. If they wanted to come back, they would have to wait a bit, and apologize to all the boys for what happened. And to my nose.
