My Fourth Grade Ulcer Wore a Bad Wig

When I was in fourth grade, my mother thought I had an ulcer. I was only nine years old but I was constantly sick to my stomach and she couldn’t understand why. I think I spent more days at home that year than I did in school. What she didn’t realize until years later was that most of those days when I was too sick to go to school, I was simply faking it.

My sister taught me how to be a convincing sick child. My mother’s assessment of my illness would include checking my pallor and skin temperature. As my sister had done the year before when she was in fourth grade, I would carefully use baby powder on my face to achieve the perfect shade of pale. Knowing that my mother would first feel my forehead with the back of her hand and then my back, I was also taught to stand in front of the heater until my skin felt sufficiently scorched. It worked like a charm every single time. While everyone else finished getting ready for school, I was promptly instructed to go back to bed; after what had been a sleepless night of worry and dread, I fell back to sleep only to wake at about ten o’clock when my father would call home to talk to my mother and check on the patient.

Those were some glorious days, staying home with my mother. I would lie on the couch and watch re-runs of I Dream of Jeannie and Gilligan’s Island, and we would always make sure to shout out our own guesses when The Price is Right came on. My mother wasn’t very fond of Bob Barker and his artificial tan but that didn’t stop her from watching it as she dusted and vacuumed, and served me my toast and tea. Tea and toast, because of course, one can never be too careful when suffering from an ulcer and weak with a fever.  My poor mother; if she wasn’t completely convinced I was deathly ill that year, she certainly went along with the charade.

It wasn’t until years later that she realized (or pretended she was just learning) how I got my ‘ulcer.’  We were driving on Foothill Road and as we approached the home of my fourth grade teacher, I reached over and leaned on the horn and yelled, “You mean bitch!” My mother was appalled, first at my language towards an older woman (this was well before cussing became as natural as breathing for me), and then as she listened to the sordid details of life in the fourth grade classroom of the woman I rarely refer to by name, and for obvious reasons here, will only refer to as Agatha Trunchbull.

I know, I know, I know. I’m 44 years old. It was 35 years ago. But I still have bitterness in my heart. She was a mean woman who seemed to take pleasure in giving children a hard time. Her introduction to our school came two years before when she appeared as a substitute in my sister’s third-grade classroom on Valentine’s Day. Substitute teacher days are supposed to be fun. Valentine’s Day is supposed to be fun. Not to this woman, though; my sister said Agatha spent the entire day drawing broken hearts on the chalkboard, each one representing a terrible misdeed by an eight year old. Happy Valentine’s Day, kids!  Imagine their joy when she was hired as their fourth grade teacher.

Agatha was a crabby, unmarried woman who lived with her slightly less crabby, but also unmarried sister. She was tall (or, at least to me she seemed tall), wore glasses on her long nose, and had several not-so-stylish gray wigs which constantly needed adjusting. I don’t remember her smiling very much, except of course, on a good day when she had her wig on straight, or when one of her ass-kisser pets brought in some flowers and showered her with fake affection. And oh, if you brought in some of those L’eggs pantyhose eggs that she could crochet clothes for…you were guaranteed a spot on her list of special angels.

Her brother was a Franciscan priest and she would go on and on about Mission San Juan Capistrano. She told the story of the swallows until we were sick.  I don’t think any child in that classroom was interested but she considered herself the  resident expert because she had that special inside connection…similar to when my brother was a bouncer and I thought I had the inside connection to a couple of local bars. Who the hell really cares? The only students that seemed to were the pets that would have said or done anything she asked of them, if even only out of fear.

She had a huge issue with boys: no patience, always correcting and looking for something to be angry and jump down their throats about. My sister reminded me of the particular joy she seemed to take in humiliating students. She constantly made fun of a boy with chapped lips, and another who had an embarrassing accident (because she expected that we all use the restroom at recess and lunch without exception).

She ridiculed another boy, loudly proclaiming, “This is NOT lunch,” as she held up the contents of his brown bag lunch. And I may have my details confused but I could swear she took a boy into the cloak room and smacked him with a yardstick. And maybe the yardstick broke…

Agatha would often take her shoes off in class and reveal feet that I suppose, had seen better days. She wore little ped stockings that barely covered her feet and I vaguely remember her referring to her toes as ‘longfellows.’ Her girdle lines were visible through her Sears Roebuck baby blue polyester pants; right there above her knees were inch-deep indentations where the undergarment was performing a remarkable job of keeping everything in place.

None of that stuff matters, I know but come on! Teachers shouldn’t teach unless they like children. School memories should not consist of humiliation and verbal abuse. This woman would have been better off gleefully stamping DENIED on loan requests, failing nervous people taking driving tests at the DMV, or barking orders as a warden in a federal penitentiary. She was just mean.

I have driven past her house several times since January 1^st as a means of testing my New Year’s Resolution # 25: Don’t honk & yell profanities as I drive past my 4th grade teacher’s house.  Yes, I could have taken the faster, freeway route home but I chose to take the long way to test myself. As I approached her house, memories of bad wigs and girdles came back to me and for a moment I felt a little bit sorry for her. But then I remembered. She was a mean woman, bitter probably because she lacked something she desperately wanted, or maybe she was simply menopausal. Whatever it was, none of her students deserved it and she never acted remorseful.

After I told my mother the truth about fourth grade, she didn't join in the profanities, but she was supportive of my efforts and leaned on the horn as I yelled a string of dirty words at the house.We did that for years and after my mother died, I continued to do it. Now it’s a mere two weeks into the New Year and I don’t honk anymore or yell ‘Hey, bitch!” out the window.  The drive home just isn’t very fun anymore.

"Besides, even if you didn't do it, I'm going to punish you; because I'm big and you're small and I'm right and you're wrong and there's nothing you can do about it."