Mr. Herbert, the seventh grade science teacher of the Coxville School for Boys, always dreaded teaching the unit about sperm whales.
It was impossible for him to keep the boys' attention. All they did was giggle and say 'sperm' under their breath for the whole lesson. Total waste of time.
Why it was even in the curriculum was beyond him. There had to be dozens of whales in the world. Why did he have to teach seventh grade boys about the sperm whale? And come to that, why the hell was it even called the sperm whale? How did that name ever make it past committee? he would ask the other science teachers over coffee in the teachers' lounge.
Not that the boys' giggling bouts were limited to hearing about the sperm whale. Any word could set them off, it just had to sound dirty: rector, masticate, syllogism, heaving, Balzac, dangling participle, swashbuckler, jocular, enter, kumquat, rimshot, Bangkok, peacock, coxswain, thrombosis, stroganoff, Uranus. The list went on and on.
But sperm whale was the worst. In fact, it was so bad that when Mr. Herbert found out about an opening in the English department, he jumped on it and left his beloved science teaching behind.
The class was on local folklore, and the first story in the curriculum was about celebrated local turkey chef Richard "Dickie" Johnson. His claim to fame was managing to baste more than 100 turkeys at a time, earning him the accolade that served as the title of the first story Mr. Herbert would have to teach: Dickie Johnson: The Legendary Master Baster of Greater Coxville.
Mr. Herbert applied to teach math the following year.
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