Mrs. Lynch woud love this!

I've been reading a book, Folks, this ain't normal by Joel Salatin in my spare minutes this week. For the life of me, I cannot figure out how this man has managed to suck the thoughts right outta my head and get them to land on the pages of a book! He writes about what's wrong with things in this world, particularly about how our food is produced and handled in this country.

In passing, he mentions a toilet that is available in Australia. But first, let me give you the background here. My first grade teacher was a woman I shall never forget. She was my first encounter with a terrorist. A few examples of the things she did that caused me great distress at the age of six follow.

First off, she insisted I put my pencil in my right hand. Who knew school was going to be like this?!? I had always used my left hand before, and now she expected me to give up all that was right and natural for me, and put that d@&^ thing in my other hand and try to get the business end to go where I wanted it to. What the heck?!? Something told me this was not going to be the best year of my life. I went home and told my parents what a witch she is, was scolded for saying such a thing about my teacher, and thankfully was given a chance to explain before the measuring stick of appropriate behavior was applied to the seat of education. My Dad called the school and told the Big Guy In Charge there that I was to be allowed to write with my left hand henceforth. Whew! That was a relief.

I don't know if that had any effect on The Hag's outlook on me, but I'm guessing it might have. Next thing I knew, I was allowed to write with my left hand. One hundred times. I was to write my name one hundred times on sheets of paper with solid lines and dotted lines that show where the letters are supposed to sit on the paper. Okay. I was eager to do well in school, so proceeded to complete the assigned task and turned it in with glee, expected praise for a job well done. When I got it back, it had a great big red 0 on top. Zero! Zero? Why did I get a Zero? I did my work, turned it in, and she gives me a ZERO?!? Her explanation: You spelled your name wrong. Huh? I checked it all over very, very carefully and could not find a single place where I put any of the letters in the wrong place, nor had I left any out. Oh ... help. I took it home that afternoon and asked my Daddy to look for my mistake. There was none, according to him. Next day, I told the teacher (who was built like a fireplug, by the way -- just sayin' ...). She informed me that I hadn't used a proper name. She claimed that my name HAD to be spelled J-U-D-I-T-H and that nothing else was a proper name according to her Catholic rules. Mind you, this was a public school and I was not Catholic. Oh boy, Dad was hoppin' mad about that one!

One more example, and then I promise I'll quit. She had rules. Tons of them. And as far as I could figure, she only made them to give her reasons to punish people. Just DARE break one of her rules in class -- you'd be sorry! One rule was that if you needed to use the restroom, you had to put up either one finger or two, indicating the reason for the visit. If you only had to pee, she would often deny permission to leave your seat. WHO DOES THIS TO A KID?!? I swear, she was the original terrorist! I figured out that my only line of defense was to keep quiet until I got home where I could tell my Dad on her. He was a strict parent, but would step in to stop the injustice being done. So the day I told him that Mrs. Lynch made Susie D pee her pants was the last straw. "How could she make someone pee her pants?" he demanded to know. I explained that she had not allowed the girl to leave her seat in class to use the bathroom, and Susie held it as long as she could, but cried and was embarassed to make a puddle around her feet on the floor. He blew a gasket, and at first I thought his anger was aimed at me. Was I ever relieved to realize he was planning a trip to the school to get to the bottom of this on behalf of about 25 little first-graders.

I think the tightly permed blue hair was the only thing that disguised the horns that surely grew from this woman's head!

So anyway, back to the Australian toilets ... they have one that has two flush buttons: No. 1 and No. 2 -- to be determined by the extent of business at hand. Mrs. Lynch: if you're still alive, go to ________!

(I meant Australia! What were you thinking? If she's died by now, I think I know where she went.)

Gotta get back to melting polar icecaps (raising cows whose burps are the bane of the Earth). Later, Dudes!