Mary's Masoches

     Mary and Jake started a home business last week.  They told me it was called "Mary's Massages" and Mary was going to hire Jake to work with her, giving massages.  I told her it was a brilliant business plan, since her company has a built-in clientelle (me).  When I came across the written document she had formed, it said at the top, "Mary's Masoches."
     Well this morning was a nightmare homeschooling experience.  Everything I taught yesterday went out the other ear, and their work today was as though I had not even shown up for school yesterday.  Incensed, with a baby crying on my knee, I wailed, "Perhaps I will have to send you all to a public school or to Faustina Academy.  If you cannot learn here, then I will have to send you where you can learn."  Then I blew out of the room to put the miserable, whimpering, snotty baby down for a nap.
     When I came back down and faced Jake and Mary, I apologized.  I told them that I will find a better way to deal with my frustrations.  Jake looked at me sheepishly and said with a cracking voice, "We just don't want to go to Faustina."  I assured them that they would not have to go there, that going there was not the real solution, and that the better response was to figure out how to improve their retention of information in this environment.  But, I acknowledged, there are students at Faustina that daydream or fail to absorb lessons for any number of reasons.  Jake and Mary visibly relaxed, and then Jake even broke out into a slight smile.  I asked him what was so funny.  He said, "Well, now Mary and I don't have to give you what we were going to offer you so that we would not have to go to Faustina."
     "What was that?"  I asked.
     "A $20 gift certificate to Mary's Masoches."