(I work every Thursday at my son’s middle school store. We sell school supplies and trinkets. Every week an elderly teacher will stick his head in.)

Teacher: “I’d like to order a Big Mac and fries!”

(He does it every week for months like it was a novelty each time and we would politely laugh like it was a fresh joke. One day we realize that my coworker has bought her son some McDonald’s food, so she empties out the fries container and hands it to me. The teacher comes up again.)

Teacher: “I’d like to order a Big Mac and fries!”

Me: “Sure!” *hands him the container*

Teacher: *laughs* “I’ve been caught out in my own joke!”

(The teacher hasn’t made eye contact since, which kind of makes me feel kind of bad.)

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(I am in high school choir standing next to my friend who is a vegetarian. For some reason, our choir is very jittery and keeps talking a lot which, obviously, annoys the director.)

Director: “Will you all stop clucking like hens? I feel like I’m in a chicken coop!”

Friend: “Is there a vegetarian option?”

(The teacher is giving a lecture on appropriate essay topics and is listing off several that are common.)

Teacher: “There are plenty of gender based topics such as equality in the military, sex and salary—”

(Before the teacher has a chance to explain the whole class begins laughing because it sounded like he had said ‘sexy celery.’)

Me: *to my friends in a dead-pan voice* “Ow, ow, look at that vegetable.”

(The teacher glared at me as the whole class continued to laugh and it took several minutes before it calmed down.)

(In English class, our teacher is asking us for some key topics from a short story we’d just read. As we name them, she writes them on the board for further discussion later. One of my classmates mentions vandalism. My teacher writes, ‘vandelism.’ I raise my hand.)

Teacher: “Yes?”

Me: “‘Vandalism’ is spelled with an ‘a’ not an ‘e.'”

Teacher: “I know.”

Me: “Oh. You put an ‘e’ just now.”

Teacher: “Yeah, I know.”

Me: “Well, why didn’t you fix it then? Others here might not know it’s wrong.”

(My teacher sneers at me and moves on to someone else, still failing to correct her spelling error. A few weeks later, my sister’s class, who has the same English teacher, is going over expectations for a peer review. The teacher writes on the board to ‘check for gramatical errors.’ My sister raises her hand.)

Teacher: “Yes?”

Sister: “Were you trying to build irony by spelling ‘grammatical’ wrong?”

(The teacher stops what she’s doing and turns to the class, addressing them in a nasty tone.)

Teacher: “Well. Since SOME of you think you’re smarter than the teacher, you can teach yourselves today!”

(She proceeded to sit at her desk for the entire period, refusing to answer any questions or really acknowledge any of the students.)

(In 1999, I am a high school senior spending my free period in a resource room, researching scholarships. The room is almost empty save for a teacher giving a lone student an oral quiz.)

Teacher: “You used the ‘blank’ to call your friends: A. newspaper, B. telephone or C. microscope?”

Student: “Uh… Microscope!”

Teacher: “…”

Student: “It was back in the day.”