Q: Your evil fairy godmother shows up and says, “Listen, missy, you gotta repeat 5th or 6th grade. You get to keep your current brain, but everything else goes in the wayback machine.” Which year do you choose, and why?
Go.
Me? Oh, I’m so glad you asked!
A: 5th grade. No question. Ms. Jones’ class. She was a fierce battleax of a 50 something teacher, who appeared to have been torn from a 1940s class photograph. I adored her. I must have known in my heart that being in her class was the closest I would ever come to realizing my lifelong dream of being an actual member of the Von Trapp Family.
She made us stand up straight and walk single file. (Loved It.) No talking. (Even Better.) On class picture day, we dressed per her instructions: coats and ties for the boys, dresses for the girls. She called us Mr. and Miss, and made us step out into the hallway (though she probably called it a corridor) if we needed to do something distasteful like cough or blow our noses.
Her favorite word – which she drilled into our heads at every opportunity – was DECORUM. We were to exhibit this decorum at ALL times or risk inciting her wrath. On one particular day, a boy I’ll call "Jimmy Wilson" did something to set her off, and before any of us were even aware of his transgression, she swooped down on him like a crazed screeching pterodactyl:
“DO YOU SEE FIRE IN MY EYES, MR. WILSON?” she screamed. “BECAUSE THERE… IS…FIRE IN MY EYES.”
My entire urinary tract somehow reversed course at that moment, and for the rest of the day, I peed out of my eyeballs. True story.
OH the glorious terror! So energizing. In the face of her high expectations, I was given no choice but to succeed. Whereas, the laid back, cool, charismatic teachers that everyone loved (including me) were always the kiss of death for me. If they demanded nothing, then I delivered nothing. In spades.
And while I suppose I could go back to 6th grade with my current brain and achieve a fair degree of academic success, I would still have to sit in front of the punk-ass chump who would raise his hand at regular intervals and insist to the teacher that I had farted WHEN I HAD NOT.
I believe he sells insurance now.
And I hope that is punishment enough.
