Way back when...

A Day In My Socks
Let me bring you back to a Wednesday at the beginning of February in the year 2006 during homeschool co-op. Co-op being what homeschoolers call a get-together of homeschooling families to do schoolwork together. Here we go:
Ah, co-op, that wonderful weekly get-together with fellow homeschoolers where we enrich our minds and challenge ourselves further to higher academic pursuits.
Well, yeah, that too, but I got hit in the head with a flying Ice Breakers box! Don't worry it was empty and so far there’s no bruising on my cheekbone, nor did any Sharpie ink get on me. The Sharpie ink was on the empty Ice Breakers box because, well, it was empty, and, well, there was a Sharpie.
Anyhow, in co-op there’s me and my mom and another family consisting of six girls, their mom and their four-year-old cousin who are like family to me. Today my mom and one of the girls were actually working. We teasingly called the girl a teacher’s pet though. Another girl, she’s nine, she was sort of baby-sitting their four-year-old cousin, but she's really too young for our studies anyway, so she’s across the room not really paying attention, nor was the boy. One of the girls, she's a bit flighty, was in-between all the chaos, and another girl was sort of just watching, she tries to maintain an attitude most of the time. The last girl is new to homeschooling and co-op so she was sort of in shock. Like, “Are we allowed to do this?”
All these girls, the six of them, are sisters, two of them are adopted and the boy, their cousin, is always with them. So, get that in your head. There are 5 teen girls including me, and then our two moms.
So, their mom, I'll refer to her as Mommy 2, because that's just what she is to me. I really do call her that sometimes. 
We all had our binders out and my mom was wrapping up one subject. We were done writing though, so Mommy 2 took the Sharpie and Ice Breakers box and started doodling. One of her daughters had colored with it on the other side, but was done with it. So, Mommy 2 all of a sudden slammed the box down on my notes. Okay, weird, but not really for co-op, so I didn't say anything. She did it again, and I saw what she was doing, she was making it like a stamp. It was an unidentifiable pattern though, so she tried it again after she had written the word “hi” on it, it worked, but hardly.
We started paying attention to my mom’s teaching again and then I tried to steal the marker and box from her, on about the third attempt I got them. I put a small “hi" with an exclamation mark on it, but it didn't work. I did some other patterns, and the girl next to me, the new girl, wanted to figure out what we were doing. She figured it out. 
Somehow, soon, chaos ensued.
Only the one girl and my mom were studying now, at the other end of the dining room table. Keep in mind that this is just a standard, rectangular, six-person table that has seven people at it with our lunch stuff, binders, papers, junk and whatnot.
So, I spun this round Ice Breakers box like a top in the minimal free space. It hit something and fell down. We pushed stuff away and onto the floor and I tried it again. Mommy 2 stole it and tried that herself. Technically she didn’t steal it; it was hers to begin with, but still. She couldn't do it, so I showed her how I was doing it. I did it, she'd do it, we'd move stuff, the new girl squeezed in at the corner between me and Mommy 2 was watching and we occasionally looked over to try and listen to what my mom was teaching.
Soon we weren't paying attention again and my mom was only talking to the one girl. 
Mommy 2 and I started rolling the box back and forth when the new girl went to the bathroom, giving us time to put her books on the chair and allow us more space. So we were doing that, then the girl comes back and sits back down, we cleared off more table space and the two other girls get in on the fun. The youngest girl and their cousin were still out of the loop, but that’s okay. That leaves my mom and the one studious girl at the other corner, oblivious to us. Keep in mind that this is not abnormal. Are you still with me? It gets better.
By then Mommy 2 had done her classic laugh; wheezing, but while I'd turned red from laughing, I had yet to do my classic laugh; snorting. Thank heavens. So by that point we’re flinging the “puck” back and forth and it sometimes flew across the room. Sometimes it went under the table and we’d fight for it, but she had tennis shoes on and I only had socks, so she won. Chaos was ensuing and the three other girls were getting in on the action. Whenever the “puck” rolled to her stomach she acted like she'd been shot, but then I missed and hit her in a certain area of her chest (Think about it.) so she got all dramatic and we both lost it laughing, more so than before.
This got my mom's and the studious girl's attention, we explained, they chuckled and went back to their work that got interrupted a few times when we purposely flung the “puck" to them.
After about fifteen to twenty minutes of this we were hot, tired, and had headaches from laughing. We usually get those when we're all together. Our fingers hurt to from colliding with each other when we all dove for the spinning “puck”. The “puck” flinging and noise came to a halt when the postal worker delivered a package. When the postal worker left, we all started laughing. We have a joke that we always should do something stupid to make people worry about those crazy homeschoolers. We never mean to actually do that, or be so incredibly loud, but we always wonder what people overhear.
Anyway, we all start talking together, not in those two separate groups. All of a sudden Mommy 2 flings the Ice Breakers box/puck at me again, but I moved forward, causing it to collide with my cheekbone. It hurt, but we all laughed like crazy, she even wheezed. I came close to snorting, but I'm proud to say that I didn't make a fool of myself today; they all know that it surely isn't feminine when I snort. Anyhow, when we stopped laughing I pouted and said it hurt and asked if it was red. I told her that even in homeschooling you get beat up by bullies, she started teasing me and I said that even in homeschooling the bullies tease you mercilessly. 
It was all in jest and soon forgotten when the new girl point out that when our dining room light is on, the glass case around it has a design that looks like smoke. We turned it back on and all were momentarily blinded before turning it off again. There are a lot of windows in that area, so there was plenty of light without it, that’s why it was off before. Then I asked her what the kitchen light looked like. She didn't see anything but a round fixture. I gave her the hint that when my niece was three months old she really, really liked it. After a minute we flat out told her that, hello, the thing looks like a boob!
That led to an interesting conversation about babies and that was the end of co-op. 
I joked about my cheek once more to Mommy 2 before they left, but we love each other all the same. She just told me that love hurts. There are more tidbits about just today, but that's the most interesting parts.
So, by now you may just have a brand new perspective on homeschooling. Or, you might just be scared. Don't worry though, we're nearly harmless.
That was the whole entry. Cleaned up only a bit for clarity. Yes that's typical and no I did not embellish. Scary huh? Ah, those were the days.