Still Taught You Something Thirty Years Later

(When I hit high school, I coincidentally ended up with several of my mother’s old high school teachers, including her science teacher.)

Mother: “Oh, you got [Teacher]! He was one of the hardest teachers I ever had! I did this one project, and I worked so hard on it, but he gave me a ‘C.’ I was so angry with him. Good luck this year!”

(Instead of being difficult, this teacher frequently did movie days, showing us old sci-fi films from the ‘60s and ‘70s. One day, a student asks about the movie days.)

Student: “Mr. [Teacher], why do you always show us these old films?”

Teacher: *with joking gusto* “It’s the future!”

(Yeeeaahh, my mother had gotten Mr. Teacher fresh out of school when he was still in Hardest Teacher Ever mode, and I had gotten him 30-plus years later, when he was coasting until retirement. My mother was thoroughly annoyed about the unfairness of it all.)