Allow me to set the scene: morning. Third period. Sitting in a small room on the second floor of our school. Anxious about whether this teacher was going to be nice. Cheery. Or mean. We were hoping the first option.

As it turned out, she was nice. She was cheery. But she was very very sarcastic. And picky.

“Hello, class.” she said, striding in. She was a woman who’s smile covered her face.

“Hello.” we all droned.

“Really now,” she snorted, “That sounded like my mother snoring.” She gave a passable imitation of my mother snoring. We all laughed.

“Now that sounded like a snort.”

She went on in a drone (purposely) and talked about herself and then the school supplies and then what we had to bring to class every day and then what we would have to turn in and then… I could not remember… and then…

“Now, finally,” she said, snapping and lapsing out of her drone, “lets have a little fun activity. I want you, to imagine a sugar cookie in your head.”

Then, I want you to tell me which one of these pictures” (she motioned at a slideshow she had put up) “which one was the closest to what you imagined.

The first was the most plainest cookie I ever saw. No toppings, nothing to make it pretty. In other words, a sugar cookie.

The second was a cookie with some icing and sprinkles. All in one color.

The third was icing and sprinkles, but in different colors. Quite creative. I picked this one.

And the fourth was just a cupcake.

We all stood up to appropriate corners of the room to state which we liked.

“Now, if you picked the first one, you got an A.”

I raised my eyebrows. What happened to creativity?

“If you picked the second or third, you get an F.”

I opened my mouth.

“And if you picked the cupcake, you get a Z.”

Very funny, I thought darkly as the people in the cupcake corner stared at her.

“What?” she said, shrugging. “I told you to make a sugar cookie, NOT a cupcake, NOT a cookie with frosting!”