After 42 years of teaching, I’ve grown to dislike people – and just want me-time. OK?

As a recently retired teacher, I was looking forward to a little me-time after a 42-year career, but I keep getting asked, “What are you going to do today?” It’s not as if I’m a complete hermit, but I’ve just grown to dislike people and, more particularly, their offspring. What should I say?
P.S., Ferny Hills, QLD

Wow, you must be exhausted. Forty-two years of dealing with brainless school bureaucrats and endless, unpaid paperwork and decrepit classroom equipment – like that old whiteboard that won’t clean properly anymore so there’s a permanent dick and balls lurking faintly behind bullet points for the Russian Revolution and the Cold War.

Forty-two years of bratty, disrespectful kids who you’re no longer allowed to discipline. You can’t yell at them or give them a little ruler-slap on the back of the legs or chuck a duster at their heads and enjoy that satisfying white puff of chalk dust when it makes contact – like a clay pigeon exploding in a skeet shoot.

Forty-two years of delusional, aggressive parents who can’t understand why their perfect child got a FAIL on their last-minute solar system diorama – a bunch of Blu-Tack blobs stuck onto the end of wooden satay skewers from a kitchen bin, some of the skewers with bits of chicken still on them.

Forty-two years of harassment and monotony and humiliation and low wages and early starts and late finishes and two dozen professional development sessions every week … Yes, yes, you’ve earned the right to dislike humanity for the rest of your life. So when anyone asks, just tell them you’re going to pamper yourself with a bit of peaceful, solitary me-time, curled up in a dark corner, rocking back and forth, jittering and mumbling, “Forty-two years, they can’t get me now, hehehehe … 42 years, they can’t find me here, hehehehe … ”

guru@goodweekend.com.au

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