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I can never tell when you are being purposely obtuse, dear.
(OFF THE RECORD DISCUSSION)
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Oh, Betty, for goodness sakes! The President just calls her "Condo-lezbo" around the White House. That's just because when you've got a colored who is that much smarter than you, you've got to keep them off balance to remind them about what's what. I'm here to tell you that Condi is a cock-crazy, pie-baking heterosexual! |
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Goodness! |
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Oh, dear. That didn't come out quite right, did it? That's what Karl told the fellows to say, but it didn't sound right coming from me, somehow. Can we get back to the teacher thing now? |
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I think we had better, dear. Let's see, you selflessly allocated almost two percent of your whole life to teaching. And now, it seems that you tirelessly devote almost eighty percent of your time to talking about it. |
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Well, I expect no more than polite adulation for dedicating 35-hour week after 35-hour week for an interminable year -- showing interest in other people's children when I've long given up feigning that tiring, fussy preoccupation with my own. I mean, goodness gracious me, we're talking about a career that spanned over 300 days -- give or take a week, Betty. |
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Verily, Laura, you still seemed quite exhausted from the whole ordeal. Why did you do it, dear? |
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Well, Betty, I'm a teacher. I teach. Because that's what teachers do. They teach stuff. And, you know, Betty, I love teaching stuff so much. I've discovered -- and I know a lot of people in education call this "Pickles' kooky new theory" -- but I don't care because I really almost believe that reading stuff can help children learn things and stuff. And, frankly, that's what teaching stuff is all about -- learning stuff. |
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Other than its brevity, what did you like best about a teaching career that merits hourly allusions twenty years hence, dear? |
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Well, I loved having the absolutely huge three-month summer vacation. Land sakes alive, that isn't a bad benefit for only being on a job for a year! |
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No, indeed. It sounds downright European! In fact, the only other job I know in this country that will give you that much time off to kick back on a freshly painted ranch, truly more Hollywood set than home, is, of course, being the Lord Jesus' anointed President of the United States. |
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But even then, the killjoys in the non-Fox liberal media make the President feel like he has to cut our Texas vacation to an abrupt month when he has those annoying warnings cluttering his desk back in the Oval Office that Islamicidal maniacs are going to fly planes into skyscrapers! |
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Truly, the Evildoers' thoughtlessness knows no bounds. But if you ask me, travelers indiscriminate enough to share a fuselage with strangers are simply asking for trouble. |
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I agree. It's an assumption of the risk. Like those nincompoops back in Midland who expected to merge into traffic when my pink Caddy was barreling down the highway. (LAUGHS) But, Betty, getting back to Karl's list, I think it was the real fun teaching part I liked the most about teaching and being a teacher teaching stuff. Being a teacher teaching stuff to people being taught stuff was so important to me. Yes, indeedy, teaching is everything to me. Well, other than landing a rich, well-connected hubby with a dream of running a string of insolvent oil companies into the ground. |
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As America's most saved Baptist, I'm acutely aware of how important it is to pay lip service to being submissive to our hubbies. How did you help foster with verisimilitude the cherished traditional family illusion that your husband was in control, dear? |
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All I did was try to be there for Bushie, my lifelong hobby of not speaking to people for days on end permitting. Early on, I devoted myself to being a solid and reliable enabler for his Narcissistic Personality Disorder by resourcefully using a shot glass and passive-aggressive withholding of approval -- like cutting back on access privileges to my freshly waxed hoo-hoo when stuff happened that was inconsistent with my unstated, but firm desires. |
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Any regrets? Well, other than your Donny Osmond haircut -- and killing your high school boyfriend! |
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Goodness, no! I still have that. The haircut, that is. (LAUGHS) No, there was other stuff that wasn't so fun -- |
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Such as? |
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Well, once again, getting back to Karl's list, my somewhat impetuous decision to throw caution to the wind after only a year of teaching stuff. |
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Yes, I believe we've sort of covered that, now haven't we, dear? In fact, in the seven interviews you've been gracious enough to agree to, we've covered the fact that you were a teacher no less than eighty-seven times, dear. |
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Well, I was a teacher. |
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Eighty-eight. |
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But what I'm talking about isn't exactly about when I was a teacher. Because I was a teacher, you know. I taught. No, this is something completely different. This is about me stopping teaching. Because I stopped teaching. After I was a teacher, that is. |
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You mean the time you flung yourself at the first affluent alpha male that asked for your nicotine-stained hand, dear? |
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Well, you have to understand, Betty, rich boys are like strips of sticky Shell fly paper to a small-town Texas girl with a pocket full of Camels and a head full of dreams. |
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Well, judging from your lips, at least you still have the cigarettes, dear. So, why did you leave teaching, Laura? |
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Well, I know I told People magazine it was to find a hubby, but that wasn't really it. I figured I had just enough unmedicated patience in me to withstand about seven hundred days -- optimistically counting -- around those annoying, obnoxious things that suck the life out of your day and always want to know why you are crying or going down into the basement with a blender and a bottle of Mr. & Mrs. T's Mai Tai mix -- |
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