Revenge Is Sugary Sweet

(I’m walking into the empty classroom while I’m on the phone with my mother. Class doesn’t start for 30 minutes. The professor walks by the room and stops in the doorway to stare at me for several minutes.)

Me: “Yeah, mom I’m glad you’re out of the hospital.”

Professor: “Excuse me!”

(The professor runs into the room and slams her textbook down on the desk next to me, knocking over my coffee so that it spills all over me, my books, and my laptop. Jumping up, I tell my mom I’d call her right back.)

Me: “What on Earth—”

Professor: “You are not supposed to use cellphones in class.”

(I look around the otherwise empty classroom and then at the clock. I still have 20 minutes until class starts. I try mopping the coffee up off my laptop with my jacket while talking to her.)

Me: “Um… I’m not in class right now. No one is in here so I wasn’t disturbing anyone.”

Professor: “That’s a lie. You’re in my class right now! You’re disturbing ME.”

Me: “But I—”

Professor: “The only thing you get to say is ‘sorry’ or I’ll withdraw you from my class and press for your dismissal from this school. Do you think you’re better than everyone else missy? You don’t have to follow the rules, is that it?”

(As she says this, her phone rings. She holds a finger up, turns around, and answers it. She speaks to the person on the phone for a minute then turns back to me once she hangs up.)

Me: “So no cell phones in class, huh?”

Professor: *turning red* “That was different. It was my boss!”

(Her boss, the Dean of Mathematics, walks by the room at the same time. He pokes his head in.)

Dean: “What did I do?”

(The professor turns nine kinds of red and doesn’t say anything.)

Me: “She was just telling me that cell phone use in an otherwise empty classroom is an offense worthy of expulsion while I cleaned up the coffee she spilled on my computer, until she was interrupted by your phone call. Can I call you ‘sugar bear’ too?”

(Needless to say, she had some explaining to do. The dean canceled our class for the day and had a sane teacher leading the class by the next session. The math department loaned me a laptop until mine could be looked at and eventually replaced due to the damages. She wasn’t fired but she refused to speak to me for the rest of the time I attended that school.)