Stories of our youth

I was exchanging e-mail with a friend, and he thought the following story was worth posting. It might help to explain that in a previous e-mail, I had made reference to my teacher's bulbous, red nose. Anyway, here is the message in its entirety:

Dammit... See, my memory is fallible. I was thinking of Mr. Dietrich, not Mr. Froelich. Damn Germanic names, how can you tell them apart? ;-)

You probably never had Dietrich. Here's a funny story... One day, I go to Mr. Dietrich's chemistry class. Mr. Dietrich doesn't show up. At first, we figure he's a little late. But no one shows up, not even a substitute teacher. Ten minutes go by. Now we're all thinking something is amiss.

Should we send out a small away team? Likely, they'd encounter one of the 50-ish hall monitor ladies, who would then track down a Vice Principal, who would then send someone to the classroom to look after us. No one volunteered to do this, as it would have invited the scorn of his peers.

Should we all leave the classroom en masse? Like a herd of antelope, some individuals might get caught, but the others would escape to freedom! Well, at least to the parking lot.

We didn't even want to talk too loudly, for fear that one of the 50-ish hall monitor ladies would hear and come to investigate. So for 45 minutes, we all sat quietly at our desks, occasionally offering some theory as to the fate of our teacher. With 5 minutes to go in the hour, Mr. Dietrich shows up, red in his whole face, not just his nose. It was like one of those recurring nightmares... He was in the teachers' lounge and totally forgot he had a class to teach, when suddenly it dawned on him... He asked us why no one had done anything to retrieve him, but of course, we had only done what we had been trained to do -- which was to sit quietly in the classroom, at our desks, from the time the bell rings until the end of the hour.

--Mark