Friday, July 16, 2010

The Meanest Nun in the World

The meanest nun in the world stood less than 5 feet tall. She wore a terrible gray wig that sometimes had the tag sticking out at the back (we loved those days). Although she was an older nun in the 1970's, she had adopted the modern dress that almost all the nuns who taught at my grammar school wore. They must have been specially made for them because they were the most god-awful polyster crap you've ever seen. Those poor women. As if it wasn't bad enough that they had to be married to Christ, they also had to wear brown and blue feed sacks made of non-breathable material in the Deep South.

Her name was Sister CC* and she slapped me across the face one day in the 4th grade because I looked at her "the wrong way." Now, when you're a midget with a bad wig and you teach 9 year olds every day, you must expect that you're going to get some odd looks now and again from those brats. Especially smartass white girls who have active imaginations and a face that gives everything away.

Didn't matter that I loved her english class and our writing project - "Tales of the 4th Grade - Everything!" (a rip-off of the Judy Blume book, very progressive in those days) - I must have seen her wig tag or started thinking about everyone in the room being bigger than she was (except for a black boy who I think really was a midget) and given her a vacant look. That's all I can think of, any way. But after that slap, it was open warfare as far as I was concerned.

I was on constant wig surveillance - if it was askew, if she used a pencil to scratch underneath it, if the tag was sticking out, I alerted the troops. God, but I was a horrid child.

She threw chalk at kids, hit them with rulers on the hands (like it was 1937, not 1977) and generally behaved like a little dictator. I guess she had the female form of a Napoleon Complex.

I have no idea what happened to her - she probably ended up at the Sisters of Notre Dame home somewhere in Maryland. Hell, she might even be alive still. If I was nicer, I might even look for her and send her a new wig.

I really thought she was the meanest nun in the world until the day that Sister Regina walked into the joint. Now that bitch? She was seriously disturbed and hated children. Again, it could have been the heavy polyster giving her chub rub, but I think she was just plain mean.

And don't get me wrong, I had some great nun teachers, too. Sister Rose Lally, Sister Margaret Thomasine and Sister Marcella (a hippie who later left the order, so rumor had it) were all awesome teachers. But CC and Regina - MEAN!


*Just her initials - my old classmates will know who she was. Of course, I actually ended up liking her. I mean, if I had to teach 4th graders every day, I would be a raging alcoholic instead of just a mild wino, so kudos to her.

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