A Latin Teacher Walks into a Bar

A Latin teacher walks into a bar.

I hurried into the coffeehouse early to snag two tables for my Latin class. We've been kicked out of Adult Ed--our group is too small--so we agreed to meet at an independent coffeehouse. But Tuesday night turns out to be Scrabble Night! Imagine my surprise when I burst in the door lugging two shoulder bags of Latin books to find that revolving Scrabble games topped every table.

I coaxed a very nice man into relinquishing a reserved table as yet unmanned by players. He saw my quandary as I dumped a pile of thick Latin books onto the floor. He twitched a smile and it must have seemed too funny--word gamers battling with a Latin teacher for space!

Anyway, my students and I ended up huddled in a dark corner shouting over the noise.

“Couldn’t we get a room at a church?” one asked

And then I blurted out, “Does anybody BELONG to a church?” And then I realized I had put my foot in it, because I had no idea what their private religious beliefs are. I quickly added, “I’m a nomad.” And then I explained dismally that churches, too, charge for meeting rooms.

It is really a nice group of students and we managed to get a fair amount of work done due to determination, calm, and tenacity. We're meeting somewhere else next week needless to say.

Today I've been recuperating from Latin Whoop Night by reading a light novel by E. M. Delafield, The War Workers, which I downloaded onto my Sony Reader free of charge (it's in the Public Domain). It's not her best, but it rather slowly takes shape as an entertaining satirical novel set in World War I about a group of women of different classes who do war work in an office run by a power-mad aristocratic bureaucrat, Miss Vivian. The workers room together in a house across the street, some get along and some do not, and everything turns topsy-turvy when class boundaries begin to blur during an influenza epidemic and Miss Vivian's mother befriends one of the secretaries. I'm halfway through.

Not bad, but not great!