RUBBER BUGS, RUBBER BUGS (Two tales to tell) Tale #1: When you squeezed the rubber bulb on the end of the long rubber tube, a coiled piece of rubber underneath the rubber Black Widow spider would inflate and uncoil, squeak as it was doing so, and propel the spider forward and into the air. I could make my rubber spider hop from a desktop and up onto a stack of three or four books. I took the thing to school with me one day and demonstrated my prowess to the other kids in my third grade class. They were impressed. So much so that they suggested I ought to show Mrs. Parker what I could do—without telling her about it first, of course. A grand idea, I thought, especially since Mrs. Parker always had a good stack of books on her desk. Right after lunch that day, I went back to the classroom earlier than normal. Let’s see now, I can hide the spider behind these three books here...(testing the spider)...hum-m-m-m, just a mite too high to jump over...(replacing the top book with a slightly less thick one and testing again)...there! Just right. I was hiding under the desk, rubber squeeze bulb in hand, when she came in. “Okay class, let’s quiet down and open up our geography books to page--” Squeeze! Leap! Squeeeeeeeeeeeek! The Black Widow spider landed on the top book with a satisfying plop, and pandemonium broke loose. Mrs. Parker screamed and leaped up onto her chair. The whole class laughed as only third graders can. And I felt like a hero. Naturally, my third grade mind had failed to consider the consequences of my actions. For an older lady, Mrs. Parker figured out what had really happened quicker than I would have thought. “TERRY ROSS TIPPETS, GET OUT FROM UNDER MY DESK THIS INSTANT!” She confiscated the spider for a week, which was better than losing it for good, I guess. When I did get it back from her, I took it straight home and never brought it to school again. Tale #2: This was a rubber scorpion, and very realistic looking. My 7th grade English teacher was a woman. One day, I brought my “pet” scorpion to school and set it on her desk (she wasn’t in the classroom yet). When she did show up a few moments later, she walked to her desk, and, without missing a beat, said, “And these things don’t bother me, because I know how to handle them.” Whereupon, she proceeded to demonstrate that fact to us. “You approach them from behind,” she said, as her right hand moved up to the scorpion from the rear, and pick them up by the tail. That way, they can’t sting you.” She spent the rest of the forty-five minute class period telling us of the experiences she’d had in some foreign country she had lived in for a year. That was probably the most interesting class we had with her all year. Unlike in the third grade, my “pet” was not confiscated. “The tail curls up and around,” she said as she handed the rubber scorpion back to me at the end of her stories. “It doesnt stick straight up in the air.” What a teacher! She’d turned a prank into a learning experience.
Posted on: Sun, 03 Aug 2014 21:54:00 +0000
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