Friday, February 24, 2006

Fuzzy Memories and Drug-Induced Flashbacks - Part VII

There were three 5th grade teachers at Club Hill Elementary (GO SCOTS, or whatever the fuck the team name was). The classroom was one large room divided into three areas. Each teacher had his/her own area of expertise, so we moved from area to area during the day.

Mr. Price was my homeroom teacher, and he also taught social studies. He was a badass (short and bald, but a badass nonetheless) who wore a leather jacket and rode a motorcycle to school. I remember most of the girls got giggly and squishy around him.

Mrs. Bouchard was the matronly math teacher who was born sometime during the Taft administration. She was always going on about "the New Math" and explaining to us how lucky we were because when she was our age, they didn't have numbers and they had to do all their arithmetic with I's, V's, and L's.

And then, there was Miss McCollaugh, the English teacher. Young and perky, with bobbed blonde hair and big blue eyes. She was particularly fond of wearing tight blouses without a bra, which made her inordinately popular with most of the boys. She was stern and bossy, but in the hottest way imaginable. I used to fantasize about being forced to stay after school, but unfortunately she wasn't my homeroom teacher.

Mr. Price was a married man and Miss McCollaugh had a fiance, but the two of them used to hang out together a lot. They ate their meals together, stood near each other while we were at recess, and occasionally left us unattended so they could go converse in the hall. Of course, this gave rise to the rumor that they were having an affair. Hell, we were 5th graders with no understanding of sex, and even WE assumed they were knocking naughty bits.

Every afternoon, around 2:00, all three classes would gather in a common area for story time. Mr. Price never participated, but Mrs. Bouchard and Miss McCollaugh took turns reading chapters to us from their novel of choice.

So one fine spring afternoon, we were all gathered around Miss McCollaugh as she read to us from A Wrinkle in Time. She was an animated reader, really getting into the voices. She was wearing a loose-fitting white sweater with nothing on underneath, and her breasts were bouncing around happily as she regaled us with the tale of... well, hell. I don't really remember what was going on. It involved tesseracts and hobbits or something.

At one particularly exciting moment in the narrative, Miss McCollaugh leaned forward. She took a deep breath, pausing to maximize the dramatic tension... and her left breast popped out!

For several seconds, we all just stared in stunned silence at that lone nipple, peeking at us over the neckline of her sweater. Miss McCollaugh stopped reading and just looked out at us, her cheeks burning bright red. Nobody made a sound.

Then all at once, wild and crazy laughter from all 80 of us. We shrieked and howled and pointed. Miss McCollaugh let out a cry, threw down the book, and bolted out of the classroom. Mr. Price ran after her, which just made us laugh louder. And poor Mrs. Bouchard was left to try and calm us all down.

Somehow, Miss McCollaugh managed to finish out the day. The next morning, she came to school wearing five bras and fourteen sweaters under her heavy winter coat, and no mention was made of the incident. Like I said, she was stern and bossy, and many of us were terrified of incurring her wrath.

But when we were sure she wasn't looking, we'd poke our hands under our shirts and recreate the incident, complete with "Boing!" sound effects. And then we'd giggle like Karl Rove with a freezer full of orphans.

You know how kind kids can be...

12 comments:

mr. schprock said...

Ah, yes, those childhood mammaries…

Tony Gasbarro said...

In high school I had a class with Ms. Wojslaw. She was young, very slim and always wore a button-front shirt. She would sit at her desk and I would often stand before her, perhaps only for this reason: the shirt always hung forward, and I could get a nice view of her bra cups. It takes very little to set a 17-year-old boy to fantasizing, and she had very little ones.

Thanks, Irb, for bringing back those wonderful mamma...oops, sorry. Schprock already used that one.

Ta-tas for now.

Sylvana said...

How low cut were her sweaters?!

ProducerClaire said...

Or, more to the point, did the necklines rise sharply AFTER that incident??

Irb said...

Mr. Schprock: That pun was udderly reprehensible! And... and... and something about nipples!

Farrago: My senior English teacher was an utter hotty. I don't think she was intentionally goth, but she was really pale with black hair, and she always dressed in black. There were rumors circulating around that she was into witchcraft, which made her even more alluring to my repressed Baptist hormones.

I will always credit her and Miss McCollaugh with jump-starting my lifelong love of writing. And boobies.

Sylvana: On a scale of 1 to 2, representing the number of breasts escaping, I'd say they were about a 1...

Claire: From that day onward, she pretty much wore turtlenecks up under her nose. She looked like Bazooka Joe...

fakies said...

We had a 5th grade teacher who was well-endowed, but she was really old. Well, she was probably only in her 50's now that I think about it, but she seemed 100. Nonetheless, the boys were enthralled. One boy was imitating her one day and referred to her as "Banana Boobs". I think it was a Madonna bra that did it. Anyhoo, she heard him and broke into tears. Who knew the laughter of children had such power?

Tony Gasbarro said...

Now that we're on the subject of teachers' breasts as objects of derision...

When I was in 7th grade there was an English teacher named Mrs. Hubbard. She was black, probably only in her forties (but then the was SO OLD!) and a little overweight. Most notable were her very large breasts, held aloft by The World's Most Amazing Bra. I called her "Miss Twin Peaks," though never to her face or within earshot. The most notable event in my memory regarding her was the day some kid said or did something to her or within her vicinity during class change. She must have told him to come to her, but instead he just ran away down the crowded hall.

Picture this: an agile, 12-year-old boy zigging and zagging around hundreds of kids clogging a narrow hallway, being chased by 130 pounds of Mrs. Hubbard...and 50 pounds of choice breast meat... Does anyone recall the scene in "The Ten Commandments" where Moses parts the Red Sea? That was the entire 7th grade class behind this unfortunate kid as everyone cleared out to make room for the sprinting Mrs. Hubbard! I think every kid - boy and girl alike - was at once laughing at the spectacle of her balloon-like breasts bouncing madly before her, and in udder amazement (sorry, had to go there) that no straps snapped!

Ah, there I go reminiscing again....

Anonymous said...

Wow, that read like a Fred Savage in a twisted episode of the wonder years. Wait, the kid didn't really read the narrative... Wasn't it James Earl Jones?

Irb said...

Trinamick: I used to refer to my Spanish teacher as "plátanos pechos," which I'm pretty sure means banana boobs. She didn't really have banana boobs, but those were two of our vocabulary words one week and I thought it was funny. Of course, I was in the 7th grade, so I also thought Diff'rent Strokes was a laugh riot...

Farrago: I've already exhausted my supply of puns involving mammaries, udders, etc., so all I can say is, "Please open your bibles to the book of Hooteronomy."

?????: Daniel Stern, but you'd be surprised how many people mix those two up.

I believe the following line was in EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of The Wonder Years, usually accompanied by The Byrds in the background:

"He didn't say anything, and neither did I. But it was then that I realized that things would never be the same between me and my dad again..."

SJ said...

What kind of fucking teacher doesn't wear a bra to teach 5th grade? (Look at me, all appalled at some shit that happened when you were 10. I'm totally a prude mom now, aren't I?0

Irb said...

What kind of fucking teacher doesn't wear a bra to teach 5th grade?

Only the BEST DAMN TEACHER in the WORLD!!!!!!!

Irb said...

Ix: Sometimes I think about the fact that she's probably in her 50s now, and I get kind of depressed. And then I imagine her boob popping out of the bottom of her shirt and I'm happy again.

Shaffner: Aw, man! You got to sit next to her desk and you were getting chatty with Caroline? I envy you, my brother!

I remember when we used to play football against Highland Park, we'd make all those signs with dead Izod alligators on them and we'd chant, "Your daddies can't buy you THIS ONE!" And then they'd beat us like 143 - 6. Damn rich kids...