Mom: You can't wear shorts to school, its winter!
Me: why not?
Mom: Because its winter, you don't wear shorts in winter, your legs will freeze.
Me: but its ok to wear skirts and dresses to school and freeze your legs?
Mom: Well... but you wear tights or pantyhose and those keeps your legs warm.
Me: Pffft, are you kidding me?
Mom: Don't mouth off, you just can't wear shorts to school in winter.
Dad: oh let her wear shorts to school in winter if she wants
Gosh I loved my dad! So, off I went to Chandler Elementary School in shorts. As the normal routine, all of the kids played in the school yard until the bell rang and then we'd line up and walk into the school and into our classrooms. None of the other kids seemed to have noticed that I was wearing shorts in winter, but as soon as the bell rang and we lined up, one of the teachers pulled me out of the line.
Teacher: What are you wearing?
Me: shorts
Teacher: Does your mother know you're wearing shorts to school in winter?
Me: yes
Teacher: (speechless for a few seconds) You're Jon's daughter, aren't you?
Me: yes
Teacher: get inside
One winter I asked for iced tea instead of milk. Everyone thought I was insane. You simply don't drink ice tea in winter, it was against the law.. or something. My argument was that people drank sodas in the winter, and they drank other juices in the winter, what's the difference between that and drinking ice tea. Its as if it was physically impossible to make ice tea during the winter or something, it was a "seasonal" drink. I would like to think that I had something to do with the fact that you can get iced tea any time of the year now.
The beauty of living in a small town is that most of my teachers also taught my father, so they pretty much knew what they were getting into.
Like the time I got a little magnet in a book, and for show and tell I talked about how magnets worked. My teacher asked me to demonstrate, and since she was wearing a metal watch on a necklace, I plopped that sucker right on the watch... I didn't realize that putting magnets on watches was a bad thing. Apparently it was an heirloom passed down from a few zillion generations. She just looked at me and said "Yep, you're Jon's daughter".
I loved that.
