That Brother From Hawaii: The Time I Made A Teacher Cry

I had this teacher back in 12th Grade that I made cry. I'm not sure what made me think of it recently, but I did. Here's the story -

I wasn't having the best time of it, to say the least, in the winter of 1989. I won't bore anyone with why just now (girl problems, obviously). Anyway, there was a new teacher that year at the old Wellington School. Mrs Robinson - Mary Lynn Robinson to be exact (it's one name I do remember). And no, she didn't look anything like Anne Bancroft - unfortunately. Mrs Robinson was pretty young and had never taught before, at least as far as I knew. She only taught part-time that year. She had Econ the 1st semester and Government the 2nd. I was in both classes. The 1st semester went by okay for her I guess. She wasn't very good, but managed to successfully oversee the class and the business we ran for Junior Achievement (we sold boxer shorts - stupid, just stupid). For the Econ class, I didn't really talk too much and managed to generally mask my general unimpressiveness (not sure that's technically a word...) with Mrs Robinson as a teacher and her terribly mediocre looks (she had straight red hair, varicose veins on her legs, and breeder hips, if that helps anyone). It didn't hurt that I sat next to Amy Teske for that class, and she was never super happy with me when I was an asshole to the teachers. So, in the interest of not irritating the girl I was kind of still dating at this point, I was pretty quiet most of the time. However, Amy and I finally broke it off for good around Thanksgiving and that fact sent me into an even further funk than I was in all fall, when we were just kind of on the outs. So, the 2nd semester rolls around. This is when Mrs Robinson taught Government (and I'm using the word taught very liberally). It was about a month or so into the semester when I made Mrs Robinson cry. As I said, I was in pretty bad shape, had a great interest in making others miserable, and had no respect for this Government teacher. One morning, Mrs Robinson announced a midterm that was coming up, but the details she gave were shady. So, I asked her, "Can you please tell me the exact date of the test and the format you're gonna use?" Instead of answering me clearly, Mrs Robinson went off on some of the topics that she was gonna particularly focus on for the midterm. That's when I said this (this is very close to exactly what I said, at least as close as I can recall 21 years later), "Madam, maybe I wasn't clear a minute ago. So let me ask you these 2 things again in a way you might be able to understand. Let me start with the easy one first, what date is the test?" Well, Mrs. Robinson stood there for about 3 seconds, started to tear up, and then ran out of the room bawling. A few of the kids in the class laughed as that happened. But generally speaking, the losers and freaks in the class, who didn't like me to begin with, were pretty mortified. I could have cared less. Fuck 'em. About 5 minutes went by and the Upper School Principal, Kathy Pinson, comes in and yanks me out of class and we go across the hall to her office. She was pretty nice about the whole thing. I never did get in much trouble for this kind of behavior for some reason. At one point, she did inquire why I was so antagonistic at times. At the time I had no idea why I was like that. I really didn't. I believe her attitude towards me, and most every teacher I ever had was the same, was: boys will be boys - don't rock the boat - blah, blah, blah....I had to apologize to Mrs Robinson, which I did later that day or the next day. And I had to go into Kathy Pinson's office and do some random office work for her that took about 15 minutes. And I never minded hanging out with with Kathy Pinson - because she was hot. Word spread about this whole incident around the school, as you can imagine. And when Amy Teske caught wind of it, even though we'd barely been communicating for over 2 months, she was a little agitated with me. I remember we sat out in one of the hallways on a free period soon after the incident and she gave me a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit to read. I'm embarrassed to admit this, even today, but I was too self-absorbed and narcissistic to get what Amy was driving at by giving me that book (I know, I know, how am I any better today???). She was a very smart girl (very smart {she went to Princeton} and a super overachiever - she had her pilot's license in high school for God's sakes). I still have no idea why she ever got mixed up with me for a year of her life (although I did have a certain charm I guess, I have no idea). The way it ended up with Mrs Robinson was that I didn't say much of anything in the class the rest of the year. And believe me, she held the whole thing against me. I know this because when they gave out the year end awards for the best student in each class, Mrs Robinson gave the Government Award to someone else (some Jewish kid), even though there was no way anyone had a higher average than I did in that stupid class (I used to know a lot about Government and politics. Now? I could give a rat's ass, that damn William Jefferson Blythe ruined everything - but back then, I knew some things, a little bit at least). Mrs Robinson never came back to teach at the old Wellington School after that one year. I would like to take some credit for driving her out of the profession, but, alas, my guess is that Kathy Pinson and whoever else made the faculty decisions didn't want her back - just a hunch. I never ran into Mrs Robinson anywhere around Dublin or wherever she lived with her not so lucky husband. If I had, I did want to say one last thing to her (and maybe, by some miracle, she'll see this), that was: "Let me explain myself to you like you're a 5 year old..."

Someday, I'll have to tell the story of how Kathy Pinson decided to punish me for running Cammie Bouneau's panties up the school flag pole - don't worry, Cammie was a willing participant...Sickos.

Note: The following lyrics are on the album I was listening to pretty constantly at the time mentioned in the story above - TBFH

I've seen you laying pined

Life is rough, rough

I've seen you laying down

With the loving kind

I know life is hard

Where to turn?