BRIAN BARNETT - lake water strider w/ Jeffrey Spahr-Summers

The Table of Misfit School Psychologists

We swivel-hip past the occupied seats until we arrive at a round table at the Fall Conference. Usually we’re near the speaker’s dais because my muffled ears refuse any voice pitched higher than the basso profondo of James Earl Jones. Julie from a town of utopian mazes waves beside Max in his madras shirt. Jackie takes the last seat. Once I wore Repp neckties to these lunches, with Pinky and the Brain cascading down a navy silk fabric. Now my colleagues recognize me by my Headless Horseman Aloha shirt. By my Tommy Bahama St. Nicholas on a surf board. Jackie named our motley troupe, “The table of misfit school psychologists.” We are the solitaires who wander from table to table in search of an empty chair. The lone wolves who’ve eaten too many servings of conference lasagna at a table for one. Max blackens his salad and roast chicken with pepper. Lauren, an intern, jokes about diving off the bell curve’s 99th percentile, and Julie critiques the mood pens in our swag bags. I ask about the watered-down criteria for dyslexia. Swap a wedge of German chocolate cake for a slice of Amish apple pie. Most of us hope Billie Bob Thornton will elude the police with his teddy-bear gift at the end of his Bad Santa crime spree again this December. Every year we introduce ourselves to each other. Every year we fidget with our fables until we fit in again.