Shampoo

Did you know that shampoo is an awesome word? At least, that's what my boy students think.

In teaching shopping vocabulary and how to say "I want" or "I don't want," I pulled out my realia and told them to pass each thing down the line and ask the next person if they wanted it.

"Do you want these jeans?"

"No, I don't." Pass them over.

"Do you want these jeans?"

"Yes, I do."

The jeans were my house mate's and the T-shirt I had wasn't clean, but I shrugged and handed them out anyway. I pointedly handed my make-up to the girls' side of the room. I didn't trust the boys with that.

"Teacher, I like this," said Iy, my fourteen-year-old with the humor and charisma of my cousin Ryan. He had draped my jean jacket around his shoulders. He looks like he's twelve, but his apparent innocence didn't fool me. I had pinned him down awhile ago. Once when a girl accused his neighbor of speaking Arabic in English class, Iy told me in all sincerity: "He no speak Arabic! He's my friend!" 

Uhuh. I looked at the jacket now. This kid cracks me up.

"Oh really?" I smiled. "You can't have it!"

"Teacher, this jacket small," one of the older boys informed me.

"Well, I'm small." 

"Teacher, we want the shampoo."

I had let the girls use the shampoo for the exercise.

"Why?" they had chuckled so much when we drilled that word, I suspected that they enjoyed how much it sounded like a less savory English word. 

"Is fun to say, Teacher!"

"Yes, we want shampoo!"

These kids might have lied to me every day, but I realized that my suspicions sometimes tinted their innocent fun. I relented.

A chorus of shampoos echoed around the room as it made it's journey. 

A few weeks later after I got home, Iy sent a picture to my phone. It was of a Head and Shoulders bottle on the floor of a shower.

Is this even appropriate? 

As I pondered the deeper meaning of this hygienic bottle, Iy followed it with a message.

"Shampoooooo."

Suddenly, my day was made.

Just a few days ago, I received a two second clip of Iy's seven-year-old sister saying in a heavy accent: "Shampuuuuuu!"

The shampoo legend lives on.