Emma the Goat and the Kangaroo

Teaching is never without its excitement. I've only been back to fulltime teaching for three days and I already have some funny stories. Every day I meet during 8th hour with the group of teachers that I work with on our team. Yesterday Shawn* (the math teacher) and Bill* (the social studies teacher) all of a sudden asked Jennifer* (the science teacher), "What's going on with the goat?" I'm thoroughly confused already, but they continue this line of questioning, wondering if it was actually a llama and not a goat, did she decide to bring the goat, and is the kangaroo coming too??? At this point I demanded to be let in on the joke.

Apparantly, Jennifer has an uncle who is married to a woman who has a goat that she brings with her EVERYWHERE. She has a note from her doctor (a head doctor, that is) that allows her to bring Emma (that's the goat) with her placed. Emma has been to Perkins. This year, Jennifer is hosting Christmas at her house and the family was hoping to get as many of them together as possible, since Grandma is quite ill. So, the question was whether or not the aunt would arrive with the goat in tow. Jennifer said, "Absolutely not." There was no way she was going to allow the goat to attend Christmas at her house!! The aunt was very put off by this, understandably, and demanded to know why Emma wasn't welcome! And, for that matter, what about Roo??? Oh yes, there is also a kangaroo. Roo doesn't go quite as many places as Emma, but she gets around.

As you can imagine, I was laughing so hard I thought I might cry while being told this whole story. I made several jokes about this situation, about how one would be a bit surprised to see a goat in Perkins - imagine you're just trying to eat your breakfast and suddenly your fork is gone and you discover it being chewed on by Emma - and about how they'll bring the skunk and the emu to Easter.

Ah, family.

*Names have been changed