At the end of the lesson, I returned to the Staffroom for lunchtime. I asked my colleagues what was so funny about saying in the language lab, “If you want me, just flash me.” Their reaction was immediate as they, too, almost fell off their seats laughing. Eventually, one of the young men, a phys. ed. teacher, not much older than me, managed to get out a strangled explanation: “Well, you know old men in raincoats ……”, he gasped, leaving the end of the sentence hanging. I stared at him blankly. “What?! No, I don’t. What do you mean?”. The very fact that I didn’t understand just produced more laughter from my colleagues. So, to help me out, he mimed someone opening his raincoat, thrusting his stomach and nether regions backwards and forwards in a provocative way. It still took me a moment to understand. “Oh, OK!” I said at last. “Got it! Understood!” and I, too, began to laugh. How could I be so naïve, so innocent, that I had never come across the word “flash” and “flasher” in this sense?
Unfortunately, though, I was.
The story didn’t end there, though.
Every day, we homeroom teachers were required to read out to our class, notices from a school news bulletin, a single sheet put into the staff mailboxes early in the day. The following morning, I was happily reading out times for sports fixtures and upcoming meetings for various clubs, when I started on the “Lost and Found” section. I got halfway through reading the announcement: “Lost! One old grey raincoat. If found, please contact Miss…….” And there was my name! I stopped reading mid-sentence, realizing that this was the young phys. ed. teacher having a joke at my expense. I told the class that there was obviously a mistake of some kind and carried onto the next item. I don’t know how I held everything together and kept a straight face.
Next day was more of the same, stepped up a notch. This time, a runner from the phys. ed. teacher’s class arrived at the door of my classroom whilst I was reading out the announcements. This student was carrying an old grey raincoat, which he said he had been told to deliver to me because I “would know what to do with it”. I took the garment, maintaining my composure, though I wanted to laugh out loud, and thanked the runner. I kept wondering where on earth my colleague had found so quickly such a dirty, tattered, old raincoat. Had he spent hours looking for one in a Charity Shop, or what?! There it was, though, in my arms, looking very old and battered, indeed. What was I going to do with it?!
So, the jokes continued for a few days, all at my expense, and in great fun. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, but took it in my stead, not letting my homeroom students know the reasons behind these various messages and parcels.
Afterwards, though, when I was back in the staffroom, amongst my colleagues, I could hardly stop laughing, because I could see that the pranks were not only funny, but also very clever. I knew I would never live it down, but what was the point of denying what was so obvious to my colleagues? OK, so, yes, I was 24, but very innocent, raised in a puritanical household in Africa, and, yes, it was true I hadn’t known the second meaning of the word “flash” and “flasher”, but I certainly knew the meanings now.
Even today, five decades later, when I look back to that time, I feel the need to laugh out loud.
It was a good lesson, well learned, after all.
