When I went back to school as a Junior I was in an English class
taught by a German lady who made us call her Frau instead of Mrs..
She was stick and hilariously so in that German way they have. She
had a zero tolerance policy on goofing off and smartassery from
everyone but me. If I made a joke she would laugh and encourage me
and then a kid in the back of the room would crack wise and she would
tell him to get out and go to detention. She would talk to me
specifically about something that interested her while the rest of
the class just had to wait in silence while we had a little chat.
Whenever we wrote essays or stories she would have me read mine or
use mine as example of how writing should be done. I had teachers who
liked me before but no one who was so blatantly playing favorites.
She was a little on the crazy side and one day she brought in a
poster she had made honoring her late dog whom I seem to remember was
named Whopper or something close to that. She had a collage of photos
and memorabilia which she brought up to the front of the class to
share with us. It looked like something a 12-year-old might have put
together so it was a little awkward that this middle aged lady was so
dedicated in such a strange way to her ex-pet. She told us about how
much she loved Whopper and all the good time they had together until
when he was quite old she took him to the vet and was told he had a
terminal illness which was going to take his life in just a few days.
I stead of having him euthanized at the vet she felt like it was her
duty as her owner to go and put him down. She took her pistol and her
beloved pet and took him out to the woods to kill him mercifully. She
told us that she dug a little hole and put him in it and then she was
going to give him the single bullet coup de grace. The flaw in her
slaw was that she lost nerve at the last minute and looked away
instead of aiming and she just wounded her dying companion. She felt
terrible so instead of shooting him to death she tried to comfort
him. It was such a bizarre story that we were not sure what the
appropriate response was supposed to be so we just looked awkwardly
between each other as she poured out her soul about her botched
attempt a pet-ricide. She was quite emotional as she told us about
finally putting Whopper back in the hole and aiming a second shot and
killing him and then burring him. When she was done we were all
completely silent and trying not to make eye contact with her or with
each other. She took her poster and hung it up on some chalkboard
poster clips at the front of the room and then told us to read to
ourselves for the rest of the class period and then she went into her
office and closed the door. When she was out of ear and eye shot we
all started looking around at each other non-verbally asking what the
hell just happened. The bell rang and we left and hopefully the Crazy
Frau was able to find some closure or catharsis or whatever she was
looking for from her English class group therapy monologue.
