Читать книгу Stories I'd Tell My Children (But Maybe Not Until They're Adults) - Michael N Marcus - Страница 14

Eleanor Browne taught junior high English. She was a vicious and sadistic misandrist—a man-hater—and our class had 31 men-to-be, but not even one young lady.

Browne made our lives MISERABLE in 1960. She tortured us at test time (“What five adjectives did Dickens use to describe the horse pulling the cart up the hill in A Tale of Two Cities?”), and she had a strange aversion to basic bodily functions.

Except when in medical school, few people like to discuss excretion and secretion, and perspiration is certainly unpleasant. But Browne found even nasal emissions offensive, and she demanded that we ask her permission to leave the room to sneeze or blow our noses.

If she was in a particularly sadistic mood (which happened often), she’d ignore a frantically waving hand until the unfortunate penis-bearer turned bright red or pale white and finally yanked his hanky without permission.

The punishment for unauthorized use of a human nose was temporary banishment to the hallway outside the classroom, where the male malefactor could wheeze and sneeze in peace.

Browne had a particularly low, gravelly voice.

One time she was talking in the front of the room, and I farted in the back of the room.

She escorted me to the office of the assistant principal, Lou Rubano, but she did not accuse me of committing the offensive anal act.

She told Mr. Rubano that I was MIMICKING HER VOICE.

Browne left me with Mr. Rubano, who took me into his private office to get my side of the story.

I was momentarily speechless. I was afraid to say “fart,” had not yet learned “break wind” or “pass gas,” and was embarrassed to use the family word, “boompsie.”

I thought for a while, and then told Mr. Rubano that I had “involuntarily generated anal gaseous emissions that produced simultaneous aural and nasal stimuli.”

He looked at me, and looked at me, and looked at me. And then he started laughing hysterically.

“Oh, you FARTED!” Mr. Rubano shouted. “I guess there’s no good reason to punish you merely because her mouth sounds like your ass.”

He said he’d tell Browne that he took care of me, and he informed me that “flatulate” is the nice word for “fart.”