Random Story – The teacher flipped us off

This is just an odd little story from my life.

Back in seventh or eighth grade, one day in – maybe history class – we had a substitute teacher.  To a seventh grader, she looked to be ninety, and she had a bit of a temper.  Older siblings had passed down the cruel nickname of Porkchop for her.  (I honestly can’t remember what her name was.)

Anyway, she’s teaching and she says something along the lines of there are five points to remember.  She raised her left hand with all her fingers held out.  With her right forefinger, she touched her pinky then folded it down while saying, “The first thing ….” We sat there and took notes.  For the second thing, she touched her ring finger and folded it, and we sat there taking notes.  But when it came time for the third thing, she touched her thumb.

So there she was, sitting in front of the class with her left hand held up with her fore and middle fingers up talking on about whatever.  And us students were all glancing at one another wondering which finger would she put down next.  And when she finally got the fourth thing, she touched her forefinger.

Now she’s in front of the class with her bony middle finger up to all of us, and we’re sitting there not believing it’s happening and trying not to laugh because we’d probably get sent to the office if we did.  And when the class ended like ten minutes later, we all rushed out and were laughing in the hall saying, “I can’t believe Porkchop flipped us off.”

At the time, I – and probably all of us – just figured she was old and didn’t know what she was doing.  But as an adult who knows some teachers, she probably just wanted to flip all of us asshole kids off.