Scene: Typing class in high school, Allen Military Academy, Bryan, Texas, 1974. Typewriters are the old mechanical type. Only one electric typewriter in the class and that one was right behind me. The outlet was next to my chair. Typing class is not the most exciting class of the day. I decided to change that.
I get the brilliant idea to pull the plug out just enough to expose the prongs, and then drop a paper clip onto the prongs.
The girl using the electric typewriter watches me, and then figures out what I am about to do.
Just as I drop the paper clip onto the prongs, she yanks the cord. There was a loud POOF.!! and the lights went out throughout the building. At the same time, another student, I'll call him Ace*, is sitting across the room where he had been quietly working on his assignment. He jumps up squealing like Ned Beatty in the movie ''Deliverence" and holding his hand on his neck right under his left ear. The instructor jumps up and runs over to Ace to see what is wrong.
Ace is still holding his neck, jumping up and down and in between squeals he shouts ''I got stung by a bee..!!!'' Now Ace is usually a quiet person. Very unassuming. Overweight with pudgy cheeks, wearing thick black frame glasses known as BCD's. I guess he was what most people would call dorky looking.
The instructor pulls Ace's hand away, and there is a very clear image of a paper clip burned into his neck. The instructor states, ''That doesn't look like a bee sting, but run to the nurses office and have it looked at.''
As Aces squeals fade down the hallway, the instructor looks at us. The smell of burning electrical wire insulation still hangs in the air. I guess we all look innocent because he ask us what happened. The incredibly handsome perpetrator of this event is sitting there with his fingers still on the keys, asking, ''What happened to the lights.??'' As we all give our variations as to what we believe happened, we hear the footsteps of the commandant coming up the hallway. The deep, heavy footsteps on a wood floor that can only mean one thing. He is coming for someone, and that someone is me.
I think I have had it, done for. I am positive Ace has ratted me out to the commandant. But no, the commandant walked past the door, just briefly looking in. He walked to the fuse box. Yes, fuse box. This is an old wood frame building that was built around 1910. He unscrewed the old fuse, and screwed in a new fuse and we have lights in the building again.!!
Several minutes later Ace returns to class. He has a big Band-Aid on his neck making him look like he has tangled with Dracula himself. Ace sits in his chair and resumes his assignment. Excitement over, back to typing....
*I changed the name of the injured party to protect the guilty of possible legal action. After Ace graduated from Texas A&M, he ran for city council, and lost. A few years later he ran for mayor. And lost. After that he became a field agent for the area representative to the state senate. He did that for several years, then moved to Washington, D.C. and worked for a lobbyist group. During that time I lost contact with him.
I will always remember Ace as the best center and nose guard on the football team and for the day I almost burned down typing class.
