Only Their Mothers Could Love Them

It was Pizza Day at the Things' school today, and I went to do my bit. As the Pizza Mom in the classroom, one's duties include handing out pizza to the correct children in the correct amounts ("No, you mother only paid for 2 slices, and if you want chocolate milk you are going to have to duke it out with her."), supervising the kids during the eating period ("The manufacturing of spitballs will result in me eating your pizza myself, and right in front of you, too.") and generally enforcing the rules ("Mrs. Loudshoes is a hardass. She makes you say 'please' and 'thank you' every single time.")
Today I had to help out in the other Grade 8 class, because there was no other Grade 8 mother around, and all the other mothers are afraid of the Grade 8's. (Some of those kids are huge.) I know most of the kids, and they are pretty nice, despite their size and the over-abundance of hormones. But, oh my God, they can be trying.
I asked one kid close by to hand out the napkins, and he obliged willingly. Except, we had been shortchanged on the napkins, and he only handed out the few we had and then just.....stopped. He didn't tell me, didn't go get more, didn't think anything of it. When I figured this out, I asked him why he didn't tell me, and he suddenly lost all intelligence in his face and became this slack-jawed, babbling idiot, who's reasoning abilities vanished altogether. I sent another kid down to get more napkins.
She came back in a minute or so and put the napkins on the table. She then sat down, raised her hand and said "May I please have a napkin?". I'm not kidding. She's not the type of kid who would do it just to yank my chain; she honestly did not connect the dots between the two things.
We also were not given the juice orders with our stuff, so I had to go down to the front lobby to pick up those. I asked who needed juice, and the kids missing it put up their hands, and I went off to get it. Except, when I came back in the room, one kid said "I didn't get my juice". To which I replied "why didn't you raise your hand when I said 'who needs juice'?". And he said "I didn't know you meant me." Of all the possible interpretations of "who needs juice", I'm not sure how he could have missed "tell me if you need juice".
The rest of the lunch period passed without incident.

I was amused at this exchange, though: Student #1 asks one of the Korean kids, of which our school has a large population "are you from North Korea or South Korea?". Korean Kid says (a bit snottily) "what do you think?". Student #1, a bit puzzled, says, "How should I know?" Korean Kid snorts a bit and says "South Korea. We're all from South Korea. Duh!" Student #2 says "Why all from South Korea?" To which I pipe in with "They're all from South Korea because the people from North Korea aren't allowed to get out of there." They all look at me like it was the cat that suddenly started to speak and Korean Kid said, in awed tones, "how does she know?"

I am reminded that my own 13 year old? Is a gem.