Surprised? Completely!

There's a saying used by doctors and crime scene investigators (if television is to be believed).  It says, "When you hear hoofbeats, you should think horses and not zebras."  It's a good way of narrowing your vision to the most likely cause of a problem, but because zebras do exist, occasionally something unlikely does occur.  If I hear hoofbeats, I never think unicorns because that's impossible.  Those do not exist.  This week, however, a unicorn knocked on my front door.

No, the isolation isn't getting to me.  Keep reading. 

I've been teaching yearbook for fifteen years, and every year, when we discuss who we should dedicate it to, my staff members joke, "One of these days, we should dedicate it to you."  I laugh and scoff, "Good luck surprising me.  That's pretty much impossible."  Apparently, this year, my editors decided that was a challenge they should accept.  They found a way to do what I thought was impossible.

While I was busy getting together pictures and information for the person I thought we were dedicating the yearbook to, they were twice as busy, making that page as a decoy and the real page on a system that our yearbook rep set up for them to work on separately.  They asked my art teacher friend how to contact my mom, who sent them information and brought them photos, not only from her house but from mine (she came to my house and took photos from my albums). 

The editors were frequently asking if they could go ask someone in the office questions for the page I thought we were making, and while I thought it was a little odd that they were going together when only one of them was assigned to the page, it didn't strike me as too odd because they were also working on senior pages together and enjoying their collaboration. 

A lot has happened this year, so the yearbook has covered a variety of stuff.  Thankfully, our final deadline was completed two weeks before we went into virtual learning.  (I even like that the Coronavirus won't be reflected in this year's book.  It's a nice way to focus on the positives of the year.)  I knew the stay-at-home order would change our book delivery and distribution.  I even found out recently that Jostens found a way to make virtual signing possible.  What I still did not know was that there would be a spread in the yearbook that I had never seen before. 

Every day since going into the virtual learning environment, we have had a morning faculty meeting.  We share devotions and prayer and make any announcements that need to be made.  On Tuesdays, it includes the faculty and staff from both of our campuses, and our head of school does the devotion.  This week, he asked me if there was a noise at my house because he thought he heard a knocking sound.  He told me that I should go answer my door because he thought someone was knocking on it.  At that point, I obviously knew something was going on, but I couldn't have been more shocked when I opened the door to see my yearbook editors standing on my porch.  In the yard were my mom, my principal and her daughter, our dean of women, and the mom of one of the editors with balloons and a yard sign that said 2020 Yearbook Dedication. 

It was only then that I found out all of this had been going on behind my back since August.  The editors read the lovely text of the page to me while I stood on my front porch.  We took some socially distanced photos (They are standing uphill from me).  They gave me a printout of the page given to them by our Jostens rep.  I struggled with my inability to hug them (just wait until I am allowed to).  And, all of this was being live-streamed to the faculty and staff who were still in the meeting I thought we were having.

After fourteen dedications of the yearbook, I've never been on this end of the sneakiness before.  It's amazing how many people can work behind your back and keep secrets from you.  People keep asking if I knew.  I totally did not.  They have asked if there as anything that I could have tipped me off in hindsight.  There really is not because when you don't believe in Bigfoot, you don't think a person walking down in the street in a furry coat might be him.