Best Laughs of All Time- Part 1

Lisa and Sue revisit the moments that made them laugh so hard they couldn’t recover—possibly not even with a bathroom break in time. This “best of” episode pulls from some of their earliest podcasts, including classroom life gems like the great fish tank debacle (apparently, electricity is optional, but fish are not).

They relive an end-of-year cleaning disaster involving a rag bag and an unexpected pair of granny panties, a typing lesson that took a turn when a student casually mentioned he was missing two fingers, and the unforgettable crisis of a plastic Lysol container stuck on a child’s finger.

There are the snack rebellions—black olives worn proudly on fingers until they were banned, then rolled down desks in quiet protest, and string cheese painstakingly shredded into a pile because using hands was apparently too mainstream.

And, of course, the legends: the substitute who played a “nose flute,” biked through anything short of a natural disaster, and once simply… didn’t come back from lunch; the entirely fabricated ghost of Rachel Underwood; and a prank involving a maxi pad that probably shouldn’t have been as funny as it was.

Because sometimes the only way to survive teaching… is to laugh at the parts no one would ever believe anyway.

Please contact us with comments or ideas for our new podcast.  Here's our email: podcastwedidntknow@gmail.com.  
You can also find us here: Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/SueandLisa
Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/wedidntknowpodcast/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lifelaughedpodcast
Thanks for listening!  -Sue and Lisa

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Woohoo! Today we thought we would share some of our favorite moments from the past. Yes, because there's been some really funny moments. I thought it would be kind of fun for us to each pick one of our favorite stories. Okay. And that made us really laugh. And I think it's that'd be great. What was one of your favorite episodes? Something that was really funny. Well, you and I struggled to find the humor and stuff organically. And we tried to do our first podcast and we ended up just throwing it away. Do you remember? Yes. So I think maybe two of them. So we just said let's just pick a topic and we said let's just do pets. And so our first first podcast was pets in the classroom. And the spontaneous laughter that came from that is one of my favorite chuckles that I've had. I had tropical fish, and then we were told that you couldn't use electricity that was private. You should have just brought in your own little generator, you know. You put them like a plug in here. You just put like little bicycle pedals on the students' desk, and they could just generate electricity for your fish tank. I watch it all. I watch it all. I wonder really how much electricity a little fish tank you could actually want to do. Remember, you couldn't have lamps, you couldn't have fish tanks.

unknown 1:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Anyway. So I had fish too, and I'm not, I don't even eat fish. Let alone I don't know how I'd be talked into. I don't know how I'd even be talked into having fish in the classroom, but I have these fish and just the cleaning of it, and the kids were really good about helping. I love that stuff. Love the guitar music. Thanks, Lisa. That's my husband, Jim. He plays guitar. Thank you, Jim. Thank you. You know, there is a funny story. It was towards the end of the year, and the paper towel that they give us to school is stupid. It doesn't pick up anything. It just pushes the water around. Oh, I don't think so. So we are gonna really, you know, we have a brand new building, or I'm like, we're gonna really clean this. Oh, beautiful. Since we didn't have any paper towels, I have a bag of rags at home. I've cut up t-shirts and I've cut up like little pieces of towel and stuff, and this big bag of rags. They pass safety inspection. Yeah, it was a it was a bag of rags. Okay. So I'm like, okay, we're gonna use those to really clean up. And the kids are really excited, and I have one of those shopping bags for the grocery store full with these rags. So I'm standing there, I'm like, okay, guys, don't use the paper towel. We're gonna use these rags. So I start just kind of throwing it out. Yeah, you're throwing them out. The kids are walking by and I'm just grabbing chunks and throwing them out to them. And I'm standing there and I'm starting to clean up my desk, and the kids are all around, and all of a sudden, this little boy comes up to my whore. Who's the whore? Oh my god! No, it's whore. Horror, horror, horror. He is holding up a pair of my underwear. Oh, a pair of my big granny panties. But he's holding up my underwear and he didn't just like kind of hold and crumple up. No, he held them up on display. Like a big flag. Yeah, yeah. Oh my gosh, Miss J, did you did you mean to throw my knees? Oh, come on. He could have been more discreet. I looked at him and I'm like, and I I I just grabbed him by his hands and I said, Oh my gosh, they're my daughters. No, no, no. They must have got caught in there. Oh, okay. So as soon as I grabbed them, I held them in my hand, I shoved them in my pocket, I ran across to a friend of mine's, and I'm like, look what I accidentally threw out to the kid. We were laughing so hard. I laughed so hard I almost needed to go put them on. Well, anyway. That's another kid I need to hold over there. So I came back to the room, I'm like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. And not one kid said anything. It was awesome. But I told my daughter this story. We're laughing. She goes, I am so mad that you told them those were my I was gonna say. And I said, I said, listen, listen, which do you think would be more damaging to a kid's kid? I was holding my teachers. I'm just holding my you know, teachers underwear, or I'm holding really, you know, 16-year-old girls' underwear. So it was just, yeah, to what did you do in school today, honey? Well, like I held my teacher's underwear. Okay. That was really I did not see that coming. No. No, now I know I have to just re-static cling, you know, they just stuck to some of the it was kind of stuck. I didn't you know what? I bet you washed them all. I did, I didn't like dryer and it's how much junk we bring from home to school? Like the whole backseat is full. I'm like, oh good about rags and because you had to bring your own cleaning supplies along. Yeah, yeah. That was that was I did not see that one come. Oh sometimes the kids will say something and it makes you question your teaching methods or who you are as a human. In third grade, we taught keyboarding how to type, and I had just met my class. I I didn't know them that well. There are a lot of kids, and I was, you know, you say pinky A, pinky A, and ring finger S. Well, this little boy came up to me and I didn't know him very well, and he said, I don't have a pinky or a ring finger. I know. He was very hot. He like literally have a pinky and a ring finger on his left hand. I didn't know. I didn't know I didn't know. I didn't notice. He was missing fingers I was busy. I didn't notice. He had the rest of his fingers. He had eight I hope you didn't do like finger coding. I didn't know how to modify. I didn't know what to do. I wasn't prepared. I'm sorry it's late at night and it's after the long day. Well, I I never told you that, huh? Do you have any fingers? I'm sure you do. I can't even tell you, like we have these Lysel containers and I have these I know where this is going. My stomach hurts really badly right now. Okay. I'm sorry, please. Okay. I know it's it. I know this plastic light sock containers. This happened to my brother. I can't believe it. Okay. Anyway. So I had the student come up and he goes, I have a problem. I said, What's the matter? He goes, the light sock containers stuck on my finger. And he got his finger stuck in there. And he couldn't get it off. Oh, no. And his finger was like blue. And I'm like, oh my god, we can't cut it. Pull it because it's dunk, you can't push it in because obviously. And so I'm like, oh my gosh, I was so worried. I'm like, we gotta get this off, or you're gonna lose your finger. And so just you know, taking a scissor and cutting it, like, oh my god. That did happen to my brother on a long trip. It was like a wet wipe. Those are dangerous. They are you had to be calm. Like, oh, that looks real bad. We'll have to fix that. Another finger story. Another finger story. Another finger story. Who has fingers? Oh, oh, I tell you, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. I'm sorry. Anyway, I had this one boy that had a snack every day. And I love this kid too. I just saw him not too long ago, and I was reminded him of the story. So every day they could bring a snack. And every day for the whole year, he brought in ten black olives. And he I'm like, you know, other kids are like eating cheeses. Yeah, you're like, I have ten black olives. So he would sit there and he would put one olive on each of his fingers. I have done that myself. Then he would sit there and he'd hold his hands out in front of him and he would just eat one off at a time. But it would take him forever. And it's like, come on. I have to say I have done that for a time. So finally I said, you know what, you can't. No more eating owls off your fingers. I know, but it was creative, but we need to get going. So then what he did was he created a ramp on his desk. He created this ramp on his desk, like picking up the back. And then he'd rolled them down. He'd rolled them down the ramp into his mouth. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you guys are killing me with these snacks. Oh yeah, that's why they were some teachers wouldn't let kids bring snacks, and they were hungry. I know. I had one girl, she kept stealing people's snacks. You are not allowed to, we don't share snacks, and you're not allowed to eat somebody else's snack. And she goes, I don't know. I like smite eats. Well, didn't you have? Just last year, a little boy would always bring his string cheese and pull it into it and make little a pile of cheese. Yes, he would bring string cheese and he would make all these the finest little strips. And he would make this huge pile. Like a big, yeah, like a big pile of hay. Hey. But what was funny then is he wouldn't use his hands to eat it. He would just bend over and eat it off. Suck it up. Oh my gosh. God, the funny things kids do. So we both know this substitute, and this is truth. We only speak the truth on this podcast. But we had this woman who would sug, but this person would spend most of the day doing a nose flute, like playing this nose flute for him. And what was really gross is she did that one day with my students and then let the kids try it. It was in her nose. And it's the thing that goes up the nose and then you blow up through your nose and it makes sense. She's the one who wore a hat that looked like a fish, right? Yes, and she never wore a bra, which was always very. I personally don't, but she was stopping in our building and she always wore her bike no matter what. Well, she came and she was kind of flighty, and she went on her bike to lunch and never came back. And when they finally found her, yeah, she goes, Oh, I forgot. Um it was some really delightful psychedelics that she was on. She was on all of the shoulder legs. What you if you don't want to wear your legs, that's that's your business. But once you start making it my business, I can smell you, I can see your hair legs, what else? But it's not your white smoke in front of me because I'm breathing the air. So she was she was on some mushrooms or something. I want, I want to watch movie. I like when people are like, oh, oh hell no. No, I'm like, run down the right to the secretary and said, block this girl and the I remember I was a brownie. Okay, remember Girl Scouts, you wear brownie? Yeah. And you had to wear a dress because it was back in the day, it was like the 70s. So we all had to wear our little brownie skirts, and I remember we all would cross arms at the end of the meeting and we'd hold hands. And we'd sing days time on the sun, da da da da da. And then we'll just peep it off. It was so beautiful. I hear the sand. I hear I'm the juke. I forgot that one. And we all will too. Poor Kathy and Ricky. Okay, listeners. Now on a more serious note, I think Sue it's time for you to tell the story of Rachel Underwood. True story. There's a little girl who haunts our school. Mm-hmm. This little girl was just nine years old when she died. She lived on this land before it was a school. Was it a chicken coop? There was a chicken coop here. That's the story. There's even a photograph of the chicken coop in the hallway downstairs. You can see the little girl in a photograph that I found. I'm holding it in my hand. Can you see it, Lisa? Is that real? It is real. Rachel Underwood died mysteriously in 1898. She haunts the school now, and I'm making this whole story up because I found this picture of this little girl in the hallway when they were building the wing where I imagined she lived. And I told this story to my classes over and over. And every year they would say, Is this real? And I would say no. Now, listeners, the picture is of a workman up on stilts doing something to the ceiling. A little girl is standing right at his feet. Yes. And her picture is faded out. Well, it isn't faded, Lisa. What I did was in front of my class, I took a pencil eraser and I said, You know what? This is a picture of a little girl who died here. And this is inspiring me to write a story. So I took the pencil eraser and I erased her little face there, see? Like that's some spiritual entities coming out, some spiritual light. And then I took the pencil eraser and I erased her face. It's black and white. We will put this online. We will. And the little kid said, Is this real? And I said, No. I said no. I'm making this whole story up because this is giving me inspiration as a writer. I was teaching inspiration as writers. Well, anyway, this little girl, she died, and she haunts the school, and it's all made up.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Is it real?

SPEAKER_01 15:27

No, it's all made up. Then we asked her, what is your name? And I went to a phone book. And I had to explain, first of all, to listeners what a phone book is. A phone book is a book of phone numbers. Anyway, we had a whole cupboard full of phone books. And I put my finger in the phone book and I stuck my finger down and it said it said Rachel. I said the little girl's name is Rachel. And the kid said, Is this real? And I said, No, I am making this story up. And then I said, now the little girl, she she needs a last name. So I stuck my finger in the phone book, which you now know what they are, and it said, Underwood! And I said, the little girl's name is Underwood. And they said, Is this real? No, I said it is not real. I'm making this up. The little girl who died in 1918, whatever I said before, share her name with Rachel Underwood. And she died at this very spot. In fact, the little girl's talking to us right now, and she's saying, Five, five, five. That means her house used to be right between the three fifth grade classrooms. And the kids said, Is this reading? And I said, No, I am making this up on the spot. And this is how writers write. I better avoid her for two weeks. That's a two-week. Oh, two weeks. That's a long one. This is a two-week. What'd you do to her? It was the beginning of school. She was panicking because she hadn't decorated her room or her door. We thought we would help Nancy out. So we took a big fat maxi pad and we wrote Mrs. C Rye. And then we red marker. Welcome to my pad. And then I took a picture and we're like, and she's like, 60 degrees and looked at me with that eye. I'm like, oh shit. That's two weeks of probation to you. And so that's classy. You could have had teeny little tampons with each kid's name on it. Yes, and it says, you know, it says Andrew. It says Mackenzie. All the children's names. Oh my god, that would have been. Because you have to have all their names in the door in a cute way. Above each desk. Because then where do I sit Mrs. S. Right here under your tampon. Or little mini pad. Okay. Okay. All the candles lining up at our white page. And all the night times. Happy dudes with wings. In the back. That's inappropriate. But you know what? We're all women here. Those of you listening to Art Women, we don't care. I can see her getting a little upset about that. That was so funny. Sue, I'm so grateful for your friendship and this podcast. This has been stress relief and therapy. Am I your stress ball list?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yes, my big fuzzy stress ball. Thank you everybody for joining. Music written and played by Jim. By Sue's husband. Thanks, Jimmy. We didn't know. We didn't know. We didn't know that's Jimmy.