Note To Self: Consider tripping math teacher. She deserves it.

I used to come to my first period math class thinking to myself, “She can’t possibly be as bad as I recall.” And I was always right. She was worse. Her name was Mrs. McClain, and she had horns. Or she did, at least, in all of the funny pictures her students drew of her. She was an obese black woman who had a loving relationship with her overhead, and a not-so-loving relationship with her students. At any one moment, she could be found either at her overhead, boring us to death, or at her desk, happily failing us all. And by doing so, condemning us to a summer of algebra at our local high school.

Mrs. McClain often looked as if her hair had been attacked by a lawnmower, and her coke-bottle glasses reflected the light of her projector, giving her a demonic appearance. But funny as she may have looked, and no matter how hard you wanted to laugh at the sheer goofiness of her, she had a way of making you fear for your safety.

Class was never interesting. Ever. Because an hour-and-a-half of staring at an overhead projection was not interesting. At all. And being that class was so incredibly boring, nobody at all tried to pay attention, for their own mental safety. In fact, if I may, I would like to take this time to compare the class to a particularly horrible reading of Vogon poetry.

And then there was the homework. Starting a new section in our math book meant two things. One, we had classwork, two, we had homework. Must be on two separate sheets of paper, even though by the time she assigned the classwork, we never had enough time to finish in class, or start for that matter. And so we always had a double-dosage of math homework, of which we were never quite sure she was going to collect, or even look at the following day.

She also seemed to hate those smarter than herself. Which would have explained why she hated us all so passionately. And I’m quite sure she would have hated my grade-school brother if he were to walk up to her and tell her we were related. Hate by association, oh yes. On one memorable occasion, Mrs. McClain’s vocabulary was tested. And she failed. But it was funny.

Now remember what I said about homework, and how she didn’t always collect it? This was one of those wonderful days. Well, wonderful for those of us whom hadn’t done the assignment. Today I happened not to be one of them. In any case, on these days, instead of just putting the answers on her overhead, Mrs. McClain would assign us all a problem to give the answer to. And if she came to you, and you didn’t have the answer, you either had to work it out with her, or she’d come back to you until you had the right answer. It would only figure that I get the one I didn’t understand. In any case, as she made her way down the rows, I furiously set myself to the task at hand, and didn’t get anywhere. And even though my last name was towards the end of the alphabet, I never got the time to find the answer. And so when Mrs. McClain called out my name, I did the best I could… sort of.

“Ashley, give the answer to number 17!”

I fidgeted in my desk. A friend sitting next to me sent me a look that said ‘Nice knowing ya’, and I blurted out the first screwball answer that came to mind. “The cube-root of three-hundred and nineteen to the fifth!”

The rest of the class doubled over in their desks, attempting not to laugh. Unfortunately, Mrs. McClain didn’t seem to find it so funny.

“Alright Ashley, you want to mess around in here you can just leave and go to dean’s office!” She liked to tell us that. “I don’t even know why you all come to school if al you want to do is mess around!” She liked to rant and rave about that too.

“Well, Mrs. McClain,” I began. “I’d rather not go visit the dean, and I come to school because my parents force me to.”

She sent me a warning glare. “Well, it’s obvious that you need to work on this.”

“Yea,” I agreed, settling back down.

“Excuse me?”

I frowned. “Um, what?”

“What did you just say?”

“Well, I said ‘yea’. As in yes, as in I agree, as in I concur.” I would have kept going, because I was on a roll, but the friend I mentioned earlier poked me in the side. The damage had been done however, because by the confused look on Mrs. McClain’s face, it was obvious she hadn’t quite gotten that last part.

“Yea, well, you just keep your fancy language to yourself, and work on math, because you’re in a math class.” Mrs. McClain kind of darted her eyes around, and commenced to calling on the next students for answers.