4:44 p.m. | 2002-09-22 High School Hijinks. My father taught at the high school I attended which was a small school. Having my father teach there had its advantages and disadvantages. Anyway, in my senior year, I had to take one of my father�s classes. That meant I got to answer a lot of questions, help others and serve as an example. Now one day, a tarantula wandered into our classroom. (They migrated down a nearby road every year and, invariably, strays often wandered into school buildings or ambled around the campus.) My father, not being one to miss an educational opportunity, rounded it up so we could all have a closer look. He told us that they don�t normally strike unless threatened so we shouldn�t be afraid of them. To prove his point, he told me to lay my hand on the desk and allow this gigantic, hairy spider to walk across my hand. I politely declined. I don�t have a spider phobia, but I don�t count them amongst my friends. Usually, I leave them alone but I will kill them if they get in my space. A tarantula is a different story. My father insisted I lay out my hand. As he was both my father and teacher, I felt compelled to comply. I stuck my hand out and he set the spider down next to it. I can still remember feeling all the blood drain from my face and the rush of adrenaline from pure fear. The tarantula tentatively checked out this obstacle (my hand) and proceeded to climb up, across and down my frozen appendage. My fear gave way to surprise. I discovered tarantulas have incredibly soft feet. All eight of them. Everyone oohed and aahed and my father said, �See, that wasn�t so bad was it?� Uh, sure dad. It did give me a lesson in facing my fears though. And, yes, my father believes in learning from the school of hard knocks. *** Another day, I was absent from class because I was having surgery on my mouth. Previously, my dentist had pulled 4 baby teeth that had never fallen out. (How embarrassing is that? Having baby teeth in high school. Geesh.) One of my permanent teeth was not coming down. To fix it, I had to have surgery where they put a band around the tooth which had a chain hanging from it and then they put a device in the middle of the roof of my mouth to anchor the chain to in order to pull my tooth down. Weird, I know. Anyway, the other students asked why I was out and apparently, my father spent the whole class time explaining the procedure I was undergoing. Complete with a diagram on the chalkboard. When I came back to school, everyone kept asking me how I was and asking if they could see my chain. I finally asked someone how they knew about my surgery and he told me that my dad had explained it all to the whole class. Uh, thanks dad. *** As a topper, eventually everyone in the class called me Cinderella. That came about because, at the end of every class, my father would give me a list of chores to do when I got home before class was dismissed. I lived alone with my father so most of the household chores fell to me. On the up side, we went out to breakfast every morning and dinner every evening, as neither one of us knew how to cook. Surprisingly, we�re both excellent cooks now. You probably thought I was going to talk about my high school hijinks, rather than my father's, but I'll save that for another day. your thoughts? seed flower