The Penguin's Revenge: Why Sunday is the worst day of the week

I sent her over the edge. I knew it was bad-- but I did it anyway. She was on the brink of insanity, and I pushed her over.
My ward is small, ineffectual, unpretentious, and prejudiced. Everyone is always in other people's business. In other words, my neighborhood is chock full of gossiping old gooses.
Against my better judgment (but for the greater good) I have skipped a few segments of the block schedule at church to chat with a friend on the couches, in the empty classrooms, or on the grass. For privacy's sake we will call this particular friend 'Anne'. Anne talks constantly without pausing for breath or stopping to listen to the other person's response. Anne has that special talent of talking while someone else is talking without losing her train of thought. She can speak to anybody, about anything, for extended periods of time. Do you get my drift? We sluffed Sunday school to save our poor teacher from the wrath of Anne's jabber mouth.
At least, that's what I keep telling myself.
And then we were caught. By the bishop. He pulled up a chair, stared straight through our souls, and asked, "Do you need a new teacher? Why won't you go to class?"
How could we lie? He'd surely know... Unluckily, Miss Chatterbox said,
"She cries a lot. She's too emotional. I don't like listening to her lessons. They're not very good, are they? I mean, she works ALL the time so she probably doesn't have time to prepare them. But still! It's like, hard to listen to her..." and on, and on, and on.
Needless to say, we went to class. The first counselor physically pushed us into the classroom full of pubescent boys and unwarranted Sunday school teacher's tears.
Anne was driving me nuts. Oh, how she talks! Our poor teacher looked frazzled and tired, and every once in a while she would cast hurt looks at the both of us. But Anne was relentless, and so was I. Full to bursting with thoughts I desperately wanted to share, I was peeved how I could not get a word in between Anne's incessant chatter. And then, for one moment, the class was dead silent, and I blurted out this:
"Two penguins were in a bathtub. One says to the other, 'Pass the soap!' The other turns to him and says, 'Do I look like a typewriter to you?'"
Silence. Dreadful, painful, ungrateful, dead air.
SLAM! The teacher had thrown her bible onto the table, where it promptly and obediently snapped shut. BANG! Into her bag she threw the chalk, the binder, the tablecloth. CRASH! In went the vase full of fake flowers. With tears streaming down her face she looked me in the eyes and said:
"You offend me so much. I don't understand, how you can say these things and think it's appropriate. You don't come to class, and when you do, you don't listen. I can't BELIEVE THAT I'M TEACHING THIS CLASS WHEN I HAVE SO MANY OTHER THINGS I COULD BE DOING AND I AM SO UNAPPRECIATED!"
She looked crazy. Her hair stuck out in all odd directions. Her face was flushed and flashed from red, to purple, to white.
And then, SLAM! The door banged shut and she was gone. The class sat in stunned silence for a moment, and the boy next to me put his hand on my shoulder and said kindly, "Well, you've officially run our Sunday school teacher out of the church and down to hell."
Even Anne was speechless.
I had to sacrifice my pride to spare my mother from the dirty looks our neighbors were giving her. Word travels fast where I live, and I'm afraid it goes even quicker when it bodes no good news. On Wednesday I wrote my teacher a note. I poured out my soul onto a little card, trying my best not to fumble my most sincere apology. I made it as eloquent as I could. She ate it up. Today she seized me in the hall by the waist, kissed me on the cheek, and whispered, "I forgive you."
I can laugh about the situation now. It has taken me a week, but the ebullience I feel from the pardon given me is enough to put a smile on my face. From this experience I have learned a valuable lesson: Never tell absurd and meaningless jokes about penguins in the middle of a lesson that a batty and stressed out woman happens to be teaching.
Just don't do it.