In Which I Become That Person

It was such a subtle transformation that I didn't notice it happening. Over what seemed like the space of a long sigh, I went from being Fun Aunt to being That Person.

That Person, who eats enough fiber, who never wakes up with confetti in her underwear, who doesn't think burps are funny, who could stop a steamroller with one stern "ahem."

That Person doesn't wear frivolous shoes. That Person gets eight hours of sleep. That Person would never guzzle sugared soda or cram an entire donut in her mouth.

That Person spots three boys lurking behind a door and is filled with world-saving purpose.

I couldn't help it. It was time for the Monday morning assembly, when everyone in the primary and middle schools lines up on the football field to be harangued (I'm guessing -- it sounds like haranguing) by the principal and endure the middle school band's rendition of the Chinese national anthem. I was a bit late arriving from the other campus, so I scurried to my spot in line by the other teachers.

But that's when I saw them, three sixth-grade boys half-hidden behind a door. They should have been out on the football field with every other student, but instead they were hunched over a Gameboy.

Here is where I should make clear that they were not my students and therefore not my problem. Rather, they were not Fun Aunt's problem.

That Person, however -- an Atlas with the world rightfully balanced on her righteous shoulders -- had to Do Something. This Lurking and Hunching and Skulking was not to be endured.

So engrossed were they in their miscreance that they didn't hear my approach.

"Ahem," I said, all raised eyebrows and thin lips.

They jerked around with fearful eyes, hyenas caught in the act of eating a cute baby zebra.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

The sputtered and stuttered, the Chinese equivalent of "hubba wubba."

"Go," I said, pointing a Zeus-like finger toward the football field. They scuttled away at, I would estimate, 40 miles an hour.

Well. Indeed. That was that. I mentally dusted off my hands and continued to my place in line, That Person in all her beige, rule-abiding glory, radiating sensibility and virtue.

And elsewhere in the universe, a handful of confetti died.