C'est la Vie

As you may have gathered, I was a bit of a troublemaker while in school. Nothing major really but I did spend some time standing in the corner in elementary school, wearing my chewing gum on my nose in the 7th grade; you all got in trouble like that too, right?

My high school French teacher was a trip without luggage. Quite an energetic man with a passion for the French language. Too bad none of his students shared that passion. What we did share was having much fun usually at his expense. We were reading Les Miserables and each time the story mentioned a city; Monsieur would bounce over to the map and give us a brief history of that town. It made him happy and we all tried to be interested.

I walked into French class and was asked by my peers to make sure that I asked Monsieur to point out the first city we came across while reading that day. Seemed harmless enough so I agreed. Sure enough we got to a city and I asked him to show us the location on the map. He was elated that I asked before he volunteered to do. So much in fact that he began giving me a brief synopsis of the town while he pulled down the map. He was facing me the whole time, his back to the map. Once the map was visible, I realized my fate. You see it was the general consensus that Monsieur was gay. Nothing wrong with that but we were teens ready and willing to pick on anyone. My peers had taped a Playgirl centerfold onto the map. When Monsieur turned to face the map he was mortified. He snapped the map back up and then for a split second brought the map down again. He turned to me and ordered me to the Principal’s office.

I honestly was not at fault that time. Try explaining that to the Principal. C’est la Vie.