My Senior year in high school was the only year that I was able to take any elective courses (other than band, which I was in all four years). 

At the end of my Junior year, I had taken all the courses necessary to allow me to graduate, but John Glenn High School wouldn’t let me graduate early.  So Senior year, I loaded up on electives.

I took typing (which I was already pretty good at), shorthand (which together with typing has allowed me to earn a living); choir; and drama (the only “real” classes I had were English and Advanced Math).

As I have blogged about before, the first day of Christmas vacation of my Senior year, I got my leg broke – in fact, I almost lost it.  Long story short:  It was caught in the tailgate of Kenny Frieder’s station wagon when he backed into a church.  Luckily, the ER at the hospital had on call a doctor who specialized in bad lacerations and he decided to try to save the leg.

Yes Ken, it’s another story about the leg.  Sorry (not sorry).

I got the cast off in March – shortly before St. Patrick’s Day – or at least shortly before the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Bay City.  I know this because I marched in that parade – the doctor didn’t think it was a good idea, but it took the swelling right out of the leg. 

Anyhow, shortly after the removal of the cast, I was in drama class and we had a substitute teacher.  I don’t remember his name but he was a real ass hat.  He was sure that we were all going to try to put something over on him.  It never occurred to him that we weren’t that interested in him to make that kind of an effort.

I think we watched a movie or something that day. 

What I know for sure is I had my bad leg up on a chair because I was supposed to keep it elevated as much as possible.  Mr. A.H. Sub told me to take my foot off of the chair.  I explained to him I needed to keep it elevated.  Mr. A.H. Sub decided I was yanking his chain and pushed my foot off of the chair.

My classmates gasped.  Literally.  (A) They knew about my leg; and (B) they knew about me.

I was not happy with Mr. Ass Hat Sub.  My sense of fairness and integrity were offended as only a teenager’s sense of fairness and integrity can be.  I was furious and I wasn’t going to take it – and I certainly wasn’t going to take it from this ass hat. It. Was. On.

I pulled up my pant leg and showed him my leg and said words to the effect of “This is why my leg needs to be elevated and how dare you question my honesty.”  I’m sure my choice of words was pithier, but those exact words are forever lost in the fogs of time (or at least the fog of my fat old lady brain). 

Let’s be clear.  Pushing my leg off of the chair did not physically hurt me.  The only time that leg pained me (except for the initial injury) was when the cast got too loose and the broken bone ends were rubbing against each other – that was incredibly painful.  But when the leg was injured, the lacerations pretty much killed all the nerve endings in the area – so there was not that much actual pain. 

So again Ass Hat did not hurt me.  But my leg was pretty much a horror show, and I knew it and I certainly was not above using it to my advantage – or at least to Mr. A.H. Sub’s disadvantage.  I have a scar that goes around my leg like the stripe on a barber pole.  And fresh from the uncasting, that scar was fresh and red and angry (almost as angry as I was with the ass hat).  I had Frankenstein’s monster’s leg hiding under my bell bottoms. 

You could almost hear the blood draining out of Mr. Ass Hat Sub’s face when he saw my leg.  And I was so glad and so careful not to show it. 

He apologized profusely, and I was having none of it.  I don’t know what he thought was going to happen to him; but I was not going to disabuse him of any concerns he may have had.  And I made sure to limp more than was strictly necessary when I left the classroom.

Hey, it was drama class.  So I delivered the drama.