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Then nobody would go to the bathroom, and everyone who actually needed to go decided to just hold it until the end of the day. The principal eventually had to shut the school down early because nobody was washing their hands and we're right in the middle of flu season. Mom was off at the library studying, so I had to call Dad at work and ask him to come pick me up from school early. And he didn't seem too happy about it.

But if he didn't make me wake myself up, none of this would've even happened. Wednesday They're starting a new unit in our Health class called "The Facts of Life," and apparently it covers all the stuff they've been dancing around for the past couple of months. They sent permission slips home, and if you don't get yours signed, you're not allowed to even be in the classroom for the rest of the semester. I really don't like this permission slip thing. Mom only lets me watch G-rated movies, so I know there's no way she'll let me be in the class.

To get around that problem, I typed up a fake note and taped it on top of the actual permission slip. I give my child permission to do extra homework, Luckily, Mom didn't look at the paper too closely, and I got the signature I needed. I'm actually glad they're doing this "Facts of Life" unit, because I have a lot of questions about this stuff, and I don't have a reliable way of getting answers. Just about everything I know in this department comes from Albert Sandy, and I'm starting to

wonder if he's been feeding me bad information. Like last week, he told everyone at the lunch table that it's medically impossible for a girl to fart. Well, I know that's not true because of the time Mom hugged Aunt Dorothy on Christmas Eve. Anyway, today was the first day of the "Facts of Life" unit, and sure enough, Nurse Powell sent the kids whose parents wouldn't sign their permission slips down to the library to be "special helpers" for the day.

The rest of us were pretty excited, because we couldn't wait to hear all the juicy stuff Nurse Powell was about to tell us. But it didn't go the way I expected at ALL. Nurse Powell put some charts up on the easel and started talking about "zygotes" and "chromosomes" and a whole bunch of other scientific nonsense. I kept waiting for her to tell us this was all a big joke and then get to the good stuff, but it never happened. So I'm guessing the school is just trying to confuse us to make us lose interest.

Anyway, if the school IS trying to confuse us, they're doing a pretty good job. At lunch we tried to explain what we learned in the "Facts of Life" unit to the kids who didn't get their permission slips signed, and we couldn't agree on a single thing. Saturday Another thing Dad's in charge of now that Mom's back in school is taking us kids to our dentist appointments. Most kids don't like going to the dentist, but I actually look FORWARD to it. I've been going to the same dentist since I was two years old, and they are totally my type of operation.