What's In Your Desk Drawer? Day 4

(This post is part of a series about the weird stuff teachers have in their desk drawers. You can read more about this project here, and I hope you'll share the stories of the weird stuff you have in your desk too!)

Mmmm...minty-fresh!

I almost always have a container of mints in my desk drawer. (Almost always. Sometimes I'm out. And then I'm sad, and miss them.)

You see, like many educators, I have a caffeine addiction. My beverage of choice is coffee. I generally have two or three cups a day. If it's a particularly rough day, I might have four. Back in the beginning days of my teaching career, it was five or six, but I got a little twitchy then. (And those of you who know me well know that I'm already a little twitchy by nature...can you imagine me after five or six cups of coffee? Yikes.)

But, because I love my coffee, I also keep mints on hand. This is because of a middle school teacher I once had who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent. This teacher also loved coffee, and loved helping students, and got up close and personal with us. This led to some awkward situations, trying to avoid the horrors of caffeination-induced halitosis. I clearly remember a classmate offering said teacher a stick of gum in class--a no-no, for sure (can't have gum in school!) All ended well, but we still tried avoid the coffee-breath. Because, ewww. Makes my nose wrinkle just thinking about it.

When I became a teacher, I vowed to not be that teacher.

Don't get me wrong--I wanted to be that teacher who was "up close and personal"--not teaching from my desk or hiding behind the podium. Like this teacher I describe, I wanted to set a classroom climate where they knew I was friendly, available, present, and willing to help. But I wasn't going to be exhaling coffee-stench in the kiddos' faces all day long.

Hence the mints.

It's for the children.

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Here's the funny part...

I realized as I started this project that I probably should clean out my desk. And I started digging in the back of the bottom drawer, where I tend to just toss stuff that I intend to keep, but kind of forget I leave in there.

I have been saving some things "because I might use them" and, well, scroll down a bit to see for yourself...

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Yep. I'm a packrat. And apparently I hoard empty breath-mint containers.