There’s been a recent flurry of stories in our blogring about teachers, and ways of gently but hilariously tweaking them. I’ve felt the need to participate, but most of my teachers were boring, a few were inspiring, a few were infuriating, but none was genuinely, spontaneously funny even when teased.

Librarians? I did have an interesting high school librarian. There’s the story!

Molly Miller was the stereotypical librarian. She was an elderly, gray-haired lady who wore eyeglasses that covered only the lower half of her eyes, and which were perpetually perched on the end of her nose. She was a strict disciplinarian and allowed no noise or other distractions in her library. This hard facade was softened somewhat by the fact that she was a bit unbalanced. By this, I mean that she was as crazy as a bedbug. She was often seen talking to nonexistent people, and she sometimes went off on strange tangents in her speech from which she returned only with great reluctance. If someone said something to her that was too complex for her limited ken, she would freeze in place with a peculiar expression on her face, sometimes for a minute or two at a time.

One day, my friend Kirk Steele and I were in one of the study rooms of the library. I was reading something, I don’t recall what, and Kirk was eating popcorn out of a small vending machine bag. Molly walked in, saw the popcorn, and informed Kirk, “There’s no eating in here.”

Kirk said, “I’m not eating.” and continued to crunch.

Molly put on her very best cross expression and repeated her warning.

Kirk, with a “Who, me?” expression on his face, said again, “I’m not eating, Molly!”

Molly blinked. Then she blinked again. She cleaned her half-glasses with a fold of her blouse, put them back on, and blinked again.

“Kirk, I can see you eating. You’re eating popcorn. You can’t eat in here!”

Kirk sat up very straight. He looked right into Molly’s eyes as I sat there chuckling.

“Molly. I am not eating. I am not eating. Do you see? NOT EATING!”

He then picked up a large kernel of popcorn, took careful aim, and bounced it off Molly’s forehead, *THORK*, right between her eyes.

Her eyes crossed. Her mouth opened wide. She tried to speak, but words failed her. She blinked again, spun precisely five hundred forty degrees in place, and walked briskly away, muttering. Kirk laughed so hard he spilled the rest of the popcorn, while I fell over backward in my chair.

Molly never spoke of the incident again.

Pistachio stats: One 1.5oz bag this morning.