My kindergarten teacher grabbed a bar of soap the day I messed my pants, but somehow she must have missed the soap’s best-uses guide.
I was late getting started, so I rushed off to school without eating my breakfast. And I didn’t have time to complete my other morning tasks either. I was almost to school when it happened. I tried my hardest to hold back, but I didn’t try hard enough.
I couldn’t hide it as I waddled into the classroom. My classmates knew immediately, and worst of all, my teacher did, too. She sent me to the restroom to take care of myself as best I could. When I returned to the classroom, she grabbed a bar of soap to complete the job.
But she had it all wrong. She stuck that soap in my mouth and told me to keep it there until I learned my lesson. I wasn’t sure what lesson she expected me to learn, but it didn’t seem to help much with the problem at hand. I thought she had it upside down.
I did learn a lesson, though. I learned that soap made an awful breakfast food, even when you were powerfully hungry. I also learned that hunger pangs weren’t the worst thing in the world, but a mouthful of soap came mighty close.
Maybe my teacher knew best. I never, ever had that problem again.
