Jodie's Daddy is a Garbageman

Funny how you can always tell when somebody's laughing behind your back. Jodie hadn't really heard anything, maybe a whisper, but when she turned around, the girls in the back row of the class were looking at her, trying to hide smiles and giggles. She looked back at her teacher. Mr Swales was talking about what people do all day. He also wanted to find out what his students wanted to be when they grew up. He called on Billy Mitzer first.

     "My daddy works in a bank," Billy Mitzer said. "I guess I want to work in a bank too. There's lots of money in the bank."

     "My parents have a grocery store," Emmy DiSalvo said. "Papa's behind the counter and Mama keeps the cash register. But I want to be an airline pilot."

     Jodie liked it when Mr Swales asked them questions like this. He was about to call on Jodie when the girls in the back row burst out laughing.

     Shirley Danes yelled, "Jodie's Daddy is a garbageman! Pee-yoo!"

     Everybody in the class laughed out loud. Everybody except Jodie, that is. She felt her face turn bright red. She looked around the whole classroom. Everyone was laughing. Some kids were even holding their noses.

     Jodie looked at Mr Swales. He was angry. He almost never raised his voice, but now he did.

     "Silence! I want everybody quiet this instant."

     The laughter stopped immediately. The sound of cars and people going by out on the street came through the windows. "You should be ashamed of yourselves," Mr Swales said. "Being a garbageman...I mean, er, uhm...a Sanitation Engineer, is a difficult and enormously useful job. We should all be grateful to Mr. Harris. Where would we be without him? Up to our ears in garbage, that's where. How would you like that?"

     "Pee-yoo!" somebody said. A few kids started laughing again.

     "It's not funny," Mr. Swales went on. "Garbage is a serious matter. I think you all owe Jodie an apology. And after that, you're all going to write Jodie's father, Mr Harris, a nice letter to tell him how much you appreciate what he does for all of us. In other words, keeping our city clean."