(We have our own three stooges in our class who often do gross stuff to freak out the girls, and sometimes say misogynistic stuff. While the teacher is out of the classroom, they think it would be fun to release a snake in the classroom. Most girls scream and jump on their desks. I roll my eyes and get up.)

Me: “Hey there, little guy. Did those mean boys put you up to this?”

(I let the snake crawl up my arm.)

Boy #1: “You’re not freaking out? I thought chicks hated snakes.”

Me: “Not all of them.”

Boy #2: “But aren’t you afraid he’ll bite?”

Me: “This fellow is obviously from a pet store. He’s too calm, and if he were venomous, I doubt you two blockheads would’ve been legally allowed to buy it or the store to sell him.”

Boy #1: “How do you know all this?”

Me: “I like reptiles. I recognized his coloration as being that of a ball python, like my pet.”

(They mumbled something and left the classroom. I told the teacher what happened and he called animal control. The knuckleheads kept doing thing to scare the girls, but they were expelled soon after a lot of parents complained.)

(In South Africa, the years in school used to be called, “standards,” like in Malaysian primary schools, but in the 1990s they switched to calling them, “grades,” like in the USA. My friends in this story are in their late 30s, so they would have been in school before the change.)

Me: “English is my home language; I only learned Malay in Standard One.”

South African Friend #1: “You have standards?”

South African Friend #2: “Hey, that’s not nice, to say she doesn’t have standards.”

My grandad told me that during the war, they were using the hall in his school as a temporary warehouse for thousands of sacks of flour. The Luftwaffe firebombed it one night and the fire brigade quickly sprayed it with water, not knowing what was inside.

Of course, when you mix flour and water, you get glue, which flowed all over the corridors and the playground before setting. They still hadn’t cleared it up years later.

(For biology, the teacher asks us to pick an animal and do a presentation on it. I have a pet snake, so I ask the teacher if I can bring him. She says yes.)

Classmate: “Hey, [My Name], what’s your paper about?”

Me: “It’s a surprise.”

Jerk Classmate: “Probably some namby-pamby, princess pet.”

(I dress very girly and cute, so people often assume I’m a cry-baby princess. I decide, “Screw it. This guy had it coming,” and take Nosferatu, my pet snake, out of the cage and put him around my neck. I tap on my classmate’s shoulder.)

Jerk Classmate: “What?”

(He turns around, sees my pet, and falls on the floor in shock.)

Me: “Who’s the cry-baby now?”

(I got detention and a B, but hey, I made everyone laugh at him, and he leaves me alone whenever I bring up Nosferatu.)

(The preschool where I work backs up to a green space with a creek and a pond. It’s been there for several decades and most of the wildlife know better than to get too close to the playgrounds. The exception is a duck couple we’ve had some problems with. Last year they nested under a piece of playground equipment on the toddler playground, something we were only alerted to when a toddler found the nest and crushed two of the eggs together. We closed the playground for five weeks and waited for the ducklings to hatch. They never did, and we were forced to clean up the mess. This year, the same duck couple attempts to build another nest in the same spot. I move a toy over the spot, but she returns the next day and tries to redo it. Frustrated, I call the local bird society. The woman at the bird society gives me advice.)

Bird Society: “You can do pretty much anything you like to harass the ducks: running at them, yelling at them, spraying water. Anything is okay, as long as you don’t physically injure them. And once the nest is built and contains eggs, it’s illegal to disturb it.”

Me: “We’d close the playground once there were eggs. But twenty two-year-olds kept inside for more than a month is a nightmare.”

(I thank her for the advice and am all geared up to use it when I spot the ducks on the playground again. They are both there, looking for all the world like a house-hunting couple who has shown up to view a property, and are waiting for their real estate agent. Unfortunately, I am in a classroom full of children, and cannot go running at them to discourage them from nesting there. The best I can do is yell at them from the door.)

Me: “Hey! Hey, you ducks!”

(They look at me but remain unfazed.)

Me: “Go away! Shoo! Um… This is a bad neighborhood! Terrible property values! Roving gangs of toddlers!”

(They just stared at me. Yeah, we closed the playground for five weeks.)