He was a chemistry teacher.  I was absent the third through the fourth days of school.  When I walked into his classroom and sat down, he asked me where my worksheets were.  “What work sheets?  I wasn’t here to get them.”

     He told me to go sit in the hall.  When I asked him why, he opened his grade book and flunked me for the year.  I walked down to the principal’s office and asked for a transfer to another class.  I found out the teacher could prevent that, because he headed the science department.  In fact, he refused to allow me to switch to another teacher.  Oh, great.

     Now normally I was a quiet student who managed to pass all my classes with A’s and B’s.  However, since he’d already flunked me for the year, I was no longer a quiet student in his class.  I figured if I was getting that F he was going to pay for it.

     I became a real pain in his a**.  If there was a wisecrack to be made, I spoke up.  If he gave a test, I made certain to doodle all over it and write my own F on the page.  The principal and I became good friends.

     That teacher never taught summer school, he always claimed he had better things to do.  My summer school chemistry teacher gave me straight A’s and asked why I was in his class.  The man was shocked when I told him and then asked him if he would’ve done any work in the class knowing that he’d already flunked.