SOMETIMES YOU CAN’T LOSE EVEN IF YOU TRY!

MOM AND HER WOODEN SPOON!

I recently had a great outing into Manhattan to see Harvey with a classmate from high school, and it got me thinking about my old teachers and what ever happened to them.

When I was I think a sophomore in high school, I had a biology teacher who was part of an exchange program. She exchanged a nice job she had in Scotland and her sanity for a job here in the states. I won’t mention her name but instead will refer to her as ‘Miss A’.

Miss A was a rather dedicated woman and teaching was serious business, and her students all loved her on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays: that’s when we didn’t see her. She kept meticulous notebooks with all handwritten entries and read from them as she attempted to teach a group of what turned out to be sweat hogs. Now not all of us were like that, just most of us when it came to her class.

Her idea of punitive measures was to get an unruly student, or one that flat out was a pain in the butt, and send him (it was ALWAYS a him) to the library. Apparently she didn’t read the manual for teachers about detention and the joys thereof.

Now let me clarify something here, I passed her course, rather comfortably, which shock two people, her and me!

In baseball, when a player or manager didn’t feel like playing or managing, he would deliberately pick an argument with the umpire and get thrown out of the game before the first pitch is even thrown. And so one day I was dragging it, and really didn’t want to sit through biology and Miss A’s Scottish accent, and decided I would get myself thrown out of class and take a nice 45-minute nap in the library. It was in the library that ‘Mrs. K’ the librarian ruled with an iron hand, but no detention powers either. We tormented her as often as possible, and I’m ashamed to say: IT WAS FUN!

My plan was simple, I would shout out a wrong answer, something really stupid and get the old heave-ho. I figured the plan was flawless, and I was looking forward to a nap.

“Can anyone tell me the definition of an amoeba?” asked the Scottish lass.

(Amoeba is a genus of Protozoa consisting of shapeless unicellular organisms.)

Stupid: “Yup-a Scottish mating dance!”

“Noooo Mr. DelBloggolo anyone else?”

That was it! That was all I had, and by now the wave of torment was starting to crash against the shore of her sanity, I could not get her attention if I stood on my head. EVERYONE seemed intent on going to the Library and the comfort of Mrs. K! What happened was the class started in and I was on the floor laughing so hard I forgot how tired I was!