Carrying around embarrassing things...

Walking over to Peet's Coffee after school, I found a brand new, still shrink-wrapped Monopoly set, LORD OF THE RINGS edition, in someone's free box. The game was enormous--too big to fit in my backpack, and I didn't have an extra bag with me like I usually do these days. So I set off trekking through southeast Portland with the Lord of the Rings edition of Monopoly tucked under my arm. Got to Peet's, gave the Lord of the Rings edition of Monopoly its own chair, and eventually decided to go to Powell's across the street. First I sheepishly asked the guy working at Peet's if I could have a bag for my Lord of the Rings edition of Monopoly that I'd found on the street, explaining unnecessarily that carrying it around was making me feel like a big dork. He smiled somewhat sympathetically, but I wasn't sure if he was smiling with me or at me, so of course I explained: "I teach eighth grade! If you're an eighth grade teacher, you cannot walk by a free shrink-wrapped board game on the street."

"Sure," he said. "I teach eighth grade too."

"Shut up," I said, and he gave me a nice big paper shopping bag.