Caught up with a friend from high school and his wife over break.

So over Christmas break I caught up with a friend from high school and his wife, who actually used to be a neighbor of mine growing up.

They had asked up when it was up with me, I mentioned taking Hebrew, because it's academically necessary, and it's a plus with the tough job market, etc., and then my friend's wife, who's a social worker and has a great sense of humor, was like, "That's so abstract! Most people I hear say stuff like, 'Tough job market, I should learn the latest version of Word,' and you're like, 'Tough job market, gotta learn Hebrew,'" and then she just laughed some more.

My friend also is switching jobs; he's a high school math teacher at the Catholic school where we went, but he got a job mid-year at public school since they didn't renew a teacher's contract last-minute in September, and had made do with subs till they could fill the vacancy... The guy had sexted a student, and was let go.

"He was a weird one anyways," my friend was like, and explained how the guy had lived in separate towns from his wife for over a decade and go visit her every once in a while, and how the guy lived near them, and during the late summer he'd have all these recent undergrads over and there'd be drunk 19 year olds walking around and speakers set up in the driveway booming bass till late at night.

"We called the cops on him a few times," my friend was like, "We didn't want to put up with that bullshit."

They then started saying how their youngest son is in kindergarten, and how it's tough for him, since he tells everyone he's good at math since his dad is a math teacher at the same school (it's all in one building, K-12), and how he goes in in the morning with his dad and sometimes run into him during the day and plays in his room afterschool, and all the seniors know him and give him high-fives when they see him.

"Did you try explaining the difference in benefits to him?", I joked.

"Actually, yes!", my friend's wife was like, and she said she told him everything on a very simple level, and how there were adult things like benefits that allowed you to go to the dentist, and how you don't think of them everyday, but they're important to take care of the family.

"How'd that work?", I was like.

"Oh," she was like, "He burst out crying, and was like, 'If I get all As on my next report card, can you buy dental insurance online?'"

They also said that their youngest son is like the Mad Hatter, where if you tell him to put on boots he won't, but then you tell him not to and he's like, "I want - To Put -ON MY BOOTS!".

With dinner, too, they said that he obviously hadn't eaten anything this one time, and they were like, "Honey, won't you have some of your dinner?", and he just looked at them and was like, "But I have... Can't you see, I've had - Seventeen bites."

They also filled me in how the Catholic school we went is getting "really Catholic". They converted a classroom into a chapel, make the kids go to Mass weekly rather than monthly, and say prayers several times a day.

"They made the kindergarteners memorize the Angelus," my friend was like. He said that he and his wife don't mind it, since it's memorization and they tell the kids how crazy and wrong some of the political stuff they hear at church is, but it is kind of weird since it's all this past stuff that's nostalgia, that's applied really without thinking whether it's appropriate.

He then said that there's a 28-y.o. priest who gave them a book about Fulton Sheen.

"How relevant would that even be?", he was like. "It's before Vatican II!".

He then said that the high school had a book club, and he thought they were reading the same stuff.

Too, once they caught their kids making a crucifix out of blocks, and then turning around a chair in front of it like a kneeler.

They also said their kids have a game where they play "Ghost Hunters" in the basement, where they go down and turn the lights off and their oldest son uses this little watch with a short tape recorder in it, where he tapes voices and then uses a notepad to 'jot down' what he hears.

"That's different!", I was like. "What do the ghosts say?"

"Oh," his mom was like, "Stuff like -

we are here

come with us

we are cold

we are angry..."

"Ummm," I was like, "Maybe you shouldn't have them play that game," and I told them about all the Catholic exorcism books I read, and how a lot of them were made up, but you shouldn't fuck around with that.

"You're right," she was like, "That game ends tonight."