"Me and Miss Mandible"

"Me and Miss Mandible" confused me at first, what was this guy doing in a classroom with 11 year olds? Had he been reincarnated or was he time traveling? As I read the story closer I realized that it was his disillusionment regarding his life. He felt he was being sent back to elementary school because he did something wrong at his job,"when I was first assigned to this room I wanted to protest...I have been betrayed again"(18), mentally we know that you can't be sent back to elementary school for a do over. But you can be treated like you were so stupid that you feel like you needed to be sent back. I had a very book smart boss like that, he would talk down to me like I was a child. I would find it so condescending and over time it ate away at my self confidence in myself, I started to feel like I was a stupid child.

A point that resonated in several parts of the story is the author felt that others were able to grasp the rules and play them to their advantage where he often feel out of place. "It took me a fantastically long time to realize what others grasped almost at once..." (19) and "they (meaning the students he was with the second time around) have a confidence in their ability to take the right steps and to obtain the correct answers". As I have traveled through my own life there have been times I have felt the same way. I would get so frustrated at work when I would work hard and give many extra hours all while watching my coworker spend most of her day with her cigarette and coffee cup in hand, and what I did was never quite enough for my boss.

I laughed the day I found out my ex-boss had been demoted, I know it sounds juvenile but I am ok with that. I can understand our main character's feelings when he decides not to tell the teacher his story about his position. "Here I am safe, I have a place; I do not wish to entrust myself once more to the whimsy of authority", this speaks VOLUMES to me. I like being back in school like a carefree twenty year old instead of being the responsible 45 year old that I am. But alas I must go back to work.....