One more amusing anecdote:

I'm charging up and down the class, ranting and railing about Marxism, feminism, psychosocialism and Freudianism in English literature, one eye on a couple of giggling girls in the back and the other on my watch, counting down the hours until I can escape to the teacher's lounge and drink a glass of fa Chrissake orange juice. "Ladies, quit horsing around back there," I say in my best Authoritative Teacher voice (which usually comes out sounding like a bad case of the hemmehroids). "This is not a playground, and the proletariat/bourgeoise struggle is a serious thing."

They stopped giggling. I went on with my "lesson." "So in this novel, we've got a bad guy, right? And he knows he's bad, right? Right?"

"Are you going to the party tonight?" someone whispered to someone else.

Here I stepped up on a desk, figuring if I couldn't teach, at least I could command attention. "You've got to look above your surroundings, that's what the Marxists were all about. They didn't see their futures as only lasting until the next paycheck. They planned ahead. And they were conscious of their surroundings. Like you all have to be, damn it."

"Hey, should you be swearing so much?" someone asked.

"Be conscious of your surroundings," I snapped. "Pay attention. There's a lot to observe in life, and most of it starts with you and your life. Got it?"

The two girls started giggling again. "Ladies, one more time--quit goofing around. Or you'll be cleaning blackboard erasers until June 5, I kid you not."

I cast them The Look (if you've ever been caught horsing around by a veteran, you know it; if you've ever seen a guy trying to stare down a bully unsuccessfully, you've seen mine) and beat the clock at thirty seconds before the bell ranting about Oedipal complexes in Romantic poetry. "Does everybody have all that? Men want to sleep with their..."

"Mothers," the class intoned dutifully.

"Okay, then, that's it for the day. Have a good weekend." I hopped down and beamed out at all of them, radiant in my scholastic wisdom and savoir faire.

On their way out, the two giggling girls passed me a note. "What's this?" I asked belligerently. "More of your damned tomfoolery? You're lucky paddles are outlawed in public classrooms these days."

One of the girls simply unfolded the note, pointed, and stalked out the room. The other one followed suit.

On the note:Check your zipper.