TEACHER HUMOR
Ragged Dick and Smelly Ass at a Teacher’s Convention
Rated R, as any good teacher moment should be
“Inspire me, Captain, my captain!”
There I was. Waiting for my brain to be stuffed full of groundbreaking ideas at the California Association of Teachers of English convention in Long Beach.
Sure, I got a few. But know what I got more of? Embarrassing, LMFAO, side-aching, and memorable moments.
Here are my top five zany memories. That definitely won’t show up in my classroom.
5. The Katy’s Perry cowboy birthday bash
Are you old enough to remember jelly shoes, big bangs, and Breakfast Club? Yeah, that flick where all the look-too-old-to-actually-be-teenagers sat around sharing personal stories? We had one of those. At a bar. Because we were old enough to be there.
Telling tales of past teaching experiences. Dissing our ex-spouses. Marveling at concerts we’d been to. When Kathy dropped the biggest bomb. She had attended Katy Perry’s wild warehouse cowboy birthday party in downtown LA. She even showed us a picture of her dancing — with Katy Perry.
Yeah, I was totally jelly. But mostly it was the reminder that even teachers can be cool.
At least those ones that don a Stetson and get down with Ms. Perry.
4. The eggplant
“Can you please stop talking? I can’t hear!” whined Miss Poopy Pants turning towards us during a workshop called How to Have Fun in the Classroom. Sure we were chatty but really. Hey, come on, we’re teachers, and traditionally were infamous for being the worst audience. Let us be.
“Make something you learned,” the facilitator instructed, giving us two pipe cleaners.
I made the perfect outline of an eggplant.
Poopy Pants shot me a look dirtier than what’s usually done with eggplants. So, when my new friend stared off in a different direction, I placed it under her seat.
“An eggplant for her to sit on,” I texted Kathy and Kate They busted up laughing.
More dirty looks.
3. Seventh-Grade Smelly Ass
“It smells like seventh-grade ass,” Kathy remarks loudly, as we step onto the escalator in a busy hallway filled with fellow educators.
Well, that’s what I thought she’d announced. Turns out she’d actually said, “It smells like seventh-grade Ax.”
The body spray. That teenagers use a lot of.
“It smells like seventh-grade ass,” I’d blurt. Like one of Pavlov’s canines, that escalator became a classically conditioned location. “It smells like seventh-grade ass.”
Every. Single. Time.
2. Ragged Dick
“Were you interested in a book? They’re free.” The salesperson approached, as we noticed the first book on display.
Ragged Dick.
I slowly picked up the book with its picture of a brightly-clad young lad on his hands and knees. I read the back cover. Main character: Dick Hunter. “He lives every day hand-to-mouth.”
“Is this 1860s author serious?” I asked my pals. “Or was he trying to do a nineteenth-century version of SNL’s ‘Schweaty Balls’?”
I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.
- The sex poet fame
“Would anyone like to read their poem?” asked the conservative, 60-something presenter. In the first session, we had been given strips of a poem and asked to piece them together. Somehow I missed out on the fact that she wanted us to read those poems.
Nervously, I raised my hand. If my students could do this every day, so could I.
“Sex in the Supermarket,” I started with my title. Eventually, I concluded with the climactic line, “Ultra-ribbed, ecstasy, lubricated condoms.”
I waited for applause. Instead, I received shocked, appalling looks from the crowd of schoolmarms. I turned a maroon shade of Shiraz.
“Um, first thank you for sharing your poetry,” the facilitator sighed. “But let’s stay on topic and read the poems you’ve created with the poem pieces.”
Teacher Convention Takeaways
My important lessons include:
- watch our for Ragged Dicks that smell like seventh-grade ass
- even schoolmarms can party hardy with Katy Perry
- always listen to instructions. Especially when it involves poems about condoms.
What happens at a teacher convention stays at a teacher convention. I won’t be bringing those top 5 zany memories up in my classroom.
Thanks for reading.
Tagging a few I know will laugh: Scot Butwell, Klara Jane Holloway, Ruby Lee, Lu Skerdoo, Evon, Susan Wheelock, Adelina Vasile, Amanda Payne, Pam Winter, Ruby the Birdie, Bridie Dillon, Victoria Valentine, Sreese, MarkfromBoston 🐾🍻, Alison Levine, Aubrey Bergauer, Andrey Pilipets.