Author: Donald Guenther
Uploaded: 10/25/2013
My story takes place when I was in eighth grade. Sister Mary taught religion class at the beginning of each day and too the class very seriously. When Jay Tofflemire kept arriving to class late she would get very upset. Poor Jay just couldn’t get out of bed on time. Jay told me the nun was edgy in the morning because she needed a cigarette. One morning on my way to school I found a package of tacks. I got to class early and placed a tack on everyone’s seat. As the students came in and sat down I had a good laugh. Sister Mary came in and started her religion class.
Half way through the class at 9:15 a.m. Jay came through the door late. Jay was a big guy wearing tight fitting jeans. His desk was right in front of the nun’s desk. Jay, half asleep, plopped into his seat right onto a tack. He jumped up cussing and swearing. He had older brothers that were a bad influence on him. The nun stood up enraged. Jay pulled the tack out of his bottom and showed her. What could poor sister Mary do? I knew at that moment I could get kicked out of school. The nun asked the class who put the tack on Jay’s seat. No one said anything.
Finally after working us over she said that the class would all suffer if the offending cowardly person didn’t have the guts to come forward. Reluctantly I said I had placed the tack. The nun launched out at me. All her pinned up anger at Jay channeled itself toward me. She said that I couldn’t take the fact that the girls got all the attention that morning as they became ladies of the altar. I tried to explain I’d simply found the tacks by accident on my way to school. I got marched down to the principal’s office. Dad was called in to deal with me. The nun went outside to have her cigarette and calmed down. I lived through the ordeal but just barely.
There are many funny parts to my horrible story and we laugh about it. Jay had been my best friend and I mean no harm toward him in telling the story. Many people don’t even think the story is funny. They feel sorry for the nun. What can say? It’s the Guenther sense of humor I grew up with.