Someone recently asked me if I was ready for summer.  I began laughing hysterically before realizing the question was a serious one.  YES, I’M READY FOR SUMMER, as is every teacher I know.  Want to put yourself or the teachers in your life to the test to be sure?  Here’s a checklist, Jeff Foxworthy-style.

You Might Be a Teacher Ready for Summer If…

…you’ve begun assigning full credit to students’ work just because they turned it in.

…you’re legitimately worried about telling the next person who says the wrong thing to “fuck off.”

…you’ve begun stretching casual Fridays into casual Thursdays until, eventually, you’re sporting cutoff jeans and a tank top on casual Mondays — and this is the classiest thing you wear all week.

…instead of jumping on every opportunity to dig into that pile of grading — during a movie clip in class, while the students are writing in their journals, between passing time — you just sit and stare at it, lamenting the poor decisions that have led you to this moment in your life.

…you’ve begun giving extra credit for the most creative excuses why students don’t have their homework finished.  This week’s prize goes to the kid whose hamster used his homework as a napkin after she ate her babies.

…you’ve had two or more meetings with parents of children who have consistently done nothing every marking period but who want to know what they “can do about [their] grade” with one week remaining in the school year.

…you’ve accepted the fact that no one is listening to you now, has ever listened to you in the past, or will ever listen to you in the future.

…politicians’ insistence that your salary and job security be based on the test score of the student who shoves number 2 pencils in his ears “for funsies” and doesn’t get anything out of his backpack until midway through the class period because “it’s too much work” no longer sends you into fits of rage, but rather fits of hysterical laughter.

…your bladder is now the size of a small African country thanks to all the “holding it” you’ve done this school year.

…instead of reprimanding the students who incite a round of Musical Farts in class, you join in.

…you showed Mean Girls in class because Emma Stone was also in Easy A which is kinda like The Scarlet Letter and this is English class, after all.

…the prospect of being able to eat lunch with adults anytime after 10 a.m. and for longer than 20 minutes now excites you sexually.

…you and your colleagues have completely checked out of this school year and are now obsessively focused on which classes you’ll cease to give a shit about come May of next year.

…the mad rush out the door at the end of the school day now includes not only students, but also teachers clawing and elbowing their way to the parking lot so they can get the hell off campus via the only exit before the buses line up and block all traffic for 20 minutes.

…the posters and student work lining your bulletin boards have begun to fall off, and instead of picking them up and neatly pinning them back in place, you leave them there to either be carted off on the bottom of someone’s shoe or tossed in the trash by the janitorial staff.

…instead of taking confiscated cell phones down to the main office, you begin using them to post embarrassing selfies to students’ social media accounts and to hone your mad Candy Crush skills.

…your evening conversations with your spouse now focus entirely on who got dumped at the prom, which teachers’ final exam rules are “totally unfair and rude and stuff,” and who got suspended for participating in the senior prank.

…you’ve contemplated committing Hara Kiri right there in front of your Smart Board during 5th period but have decided against it as it’s doubtful even the sight of your disemboweled carcass would garner much student attention.

…students are now using their shirt sleeves and desktops as booger receptacles after you’ve completely blown through your Kleenex and hand sanitizer stash with no intention of replenishing it.

…you are on first name terms with the clerks at the liquor store.

…someone spelled “definitely” as “defiantly” on the last spelling quiz, and you figure that’s close enough.

…you know damn well the student who asks to use the restroom really just wants to wander the hallways for 5 minutes, and you don’t care; you’re just glad that’s 5 fewer minutes you’ll have to deal with him today.

…the after-school teacher gatherings at the local pub have slowly morphed from a biweekly Friday event to an every-other-day situation.

…you often find yourself basking in the warm sun, wiggling your toes in the sand and sipping on a dark rum pina colada until the collective sound of students calling your name reminds you that  right now, it’s the middle of 2nd period and you’ve only made it halfway through slide 3 of that riveting lecture you prepared on sedimentary rock.

…you no longer hide your rolling eyes and sarcastic comments at staff meetings when administrators insist you crunch the data to determine how you can magically make 10 percent of the student population give a crap.

…you’ve come to the realization that you require an additional Fuck It Bucket; yours is pretty darn full.