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Good Food And Bad Education before/after In the sixth grade, my education was thwarted by the eating habits of a teacher. Mrs. Cray. I had Mrs. Cray for at least three periods a day, if not more, including homeroom. Mrs. Cray was a stout figure, broad through the shoulders and everywhere else with sagging skin, dark salt and pepper hair, turkey neck, and elephantine legs loosely shrouded typically by a tan suit. There were days of the mu-mu. She waddled. She picked her nose. She was the type of person who picked their nose, and examined the find in public. Peering close, then moving it away, in a 'what the hell is that' manner, before flicking it away. A couple of times she flicked it onto a student's desk. (most likely by accident) Stephanie something was the victim. That amused me to no end. And she was entirely unconcerned about educating her charges. Mrs. Cray's sole focus in life was eating, and apparently maintaing her body mass. I had her for social studies, biology, homeroom, and some other bullshit class, but the lesson plan was the same thing, regardless of the subject: movie time and/or reading. Sometimes it was quiet reading. Sometimes it was class reading. It all went down the same way. You knew it when you hit the door. Typically, the reading would start, and the rustle of cellophane would be heard from behind her desk like the opening whistles of a spaghetti western, or the obligatory tumble weeds as you enter a ghost town. It was time. Time for her hourly feeding. This woman ate every hour. Every hour. I would look up to see her rummaging through her file cabinet, which, in my spare time, I would rifle through her stash just to see what the hell was going on with this massive outlay of energy solely dedicated to her gritting. And strange it was. She had her snacks collated and filed in the cabinet: chips, pretzels, pop-corn, salsa chips, doritos, fritos, pork rinds, you name it, it was like a seven eleven in that cabinet. But that's not all. She had two power strips plugged into the wall. These power strips supported a veritable who's-who of dining appliances. She didn't give a fuck about what we were reading. It was all a ploy. A ploy to support her grazing habits. She got the teaching degree, or faked it, and got tenure. "Gee," she must have thought, "What job can I be indoors, and near to power outlets all day long, and not have to move away from them?" One week she made us watch "The Sound of Music" for history class. Huh? "Watch how the young men change when the Germans come to town," she admonished the class, hand in a sack of banana chips. Okay. Sure. WWII as interpreted by 'The Sound of Music". Right. And those banana chips, man. That fucking gash would dole out all her stale food to the homeroom. Stale-assed banana chips. You fucker; I KNOW you got fresh fuckin' food back there, and you dole out goddam stale BANANA fuckin' chips? What the fuck did I do to you? Moldy fruit. I would immediately turn and give my portion to the kids on the school lunch aid program, or the special ed kid. (Sometimes that was the same person.) Fuckin' Sound of Music went down just like every other movie. Lights would go off, and you could count. Never more than five minutes. Never. *Click* The desk lamp goes on. *rustle, rustle, rustle,* *grunt* And then the blender would fire up. She had a goddam blender in there, along with an electric can opener, personal sized coffee pot, a microwave, a sandwich maker, a toaster, a hot-air popcorn popper (from the time she was trying to lose weight), and the crown jewel, the crem-de-la-creme: the refrigerator. I only got one peek in the fridge while I was there. I was a favorite of hers, because her daughter had a crush on me, and in a way, I felt bad about rummaging through her enormous culinary collection, but at the same time, I had to know. You wouldn't believe it. Families on welfare should have it so good. It was like a supermarket in that cooler. Sodas of every description. Candy bars and ice cream. Popsicles. Chocolate milk. Fruit and vegetables, coleslaw, makings for sandwiches, leftovers of every description. Meat. Fucking meat. Pre-cooked. You know you have a problem when... One time she tried to get us to brainstorm for projects for the class for biology, or science or whatever it was. "I know," said a burnout named mike,"We can get a spider, and a grasshopper, and have them duke it out in a jar." "That's a stupid idea." she said bluntly, as was her style when something interfered with the mow-down,"Okay, we're going to watch a video." Oh, no. Don't educate me. We know what's going down. Sound of goddam Music. Watched that shit twice. (I skipped the third showing) The lights went off. I turned to my best friend. He was already watching. I felt the laughter rising upon me. We were both watching the clock. She never made it past five minutes. And I didn't learn shit in the sixth grade.
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