Top 5 Things* I Am Not Missing This Summer

I have been rolling this list around in my mind for several weeks now, so I thought it was finally time to put it into print. It should be noted that there is an ASTERISK. These are the Top 5 things -- non-kid-related -- that I am not missing. If I were to get started on things that the kids do, this could easily turn into a top 500 list...
And so, without any further ado (or skidoo), here we go.

5) Having to replace the lightbulb in my overhead machine --
I rely on my overhead the way Horatio Sanz relies on deep dish pizza; it's a must-have! This might earn me the scorn of some veteran teachers out there, but what can I say, I need it to do my job efficiently. And sometimes it seems as if my machine is trying to provide proof for chaos theory -- if a butterfly flaps its wings in China... my overhead bulb burns out. Last year, I must have had to replace that thing seven or eight times. I've owned my house for close to a year now, and I have yet to replace a lightbulb.

4) As Rob Schneider used to say... "Makin' copies!" --
I never minded so much when I was making my own copies. But this year, the school really cracked down hard on numbers -- so much so that us teachers were actually prohibited from making our own copies. They hired someone to make all of the copies for the entire school. This was, needless to say, a rough transition, and for a while there, 8.5x11 paper was a hotter commodity than gold or even gasoline! At least I won't have to worry about copies for another couple of months.

3) The tendency of my electric pencil sharpener to sharpen the wood rather than the lead --
As a teacher, I feel like I sharpen about 200 pencils a day because my kids are constantly breaking them. (Ah, but this list isn't about the kids, right?) So it is incredibly frustrating when I pull the ol' number 2 out, and instead of a usable writing implement, I have what basically amounts to a stake. Hey, maybe if I lived in California and had to fend off vampires, then I wouldn't mind as much. But here in Texas, I never have vampires in class, just the occasional zombie, and an improperly sharpened pencil just won't work against them.

2) Burrito day in the cafeteria --
'Nuff said!

1) Our professional dress code --
I know that some teachers get to wear jeans, T-shirts, and casual clothes all year long, but not us. For most of the year, I am required to wear a button-down shirt and tie. For me, this means a long-sleeve shirt because I've just never been into the Dilbert look. This attire is not always so pleasant, especially when the temperature is in the 90s. Sure, we have the "summer dress code," when we can wear golf shirts, but this year, they didn't allow that until early May, with less than a month of school left. Now I'm not saying we should have teachers walking around in halter tops and banana hammocks, but it would certainly be nice to at least have a regular casual Friday.

And that, my friends, is the list. As always, please feel free to share your own opinions and items.