Holly The Horse
In middle school (at Milwee Middle School in Orlando) I was in gifted classes, and all the gifted kids had the same classes (with each other, I mean). There was this one girl who was sorta good looking, but really prim and proper. She didn't fit in in Orlando, she was kind of snobbish. Rich. Her name was Holly, and she owned horses. She loved horses. Lived and breathed them. All of her essays, conversations, shirt logos were about horses. She had a huge red backpack with a little horse keychain dangling on it. She doodled horses. They probably ate at her dinner table. And so, being kids, everyone started calling her Holly the Horse.
For a couple of years it went on relentlessly, she would occasionally be reduced to tears. And then out of the blue she told or english teacher, Mrs. Oswald that she was moving to another school. This day would be her last. Mrs. Oswald asked why, and Holly told her: she couldn't deal with being harassed about horses anymore.
Mrs. Oswald flipped, as any good teacher would. Totally freaked out on the whole class. Went into a tirade five, maybe ten minutes long. I can remember it vividly, we were working in the dark on the overhead projector. Mrs. Oswald pointed out a couple of individuals in particular, one being another girl named Holly who was head horse-girl-hater--apparently Mrs. Oswald wasn't totally in the dark.
Finally, she started to calm down some, and said "I mean, come on guys. You're really beating a dead horse here." The class ERUPTED. EVERYONE laughed, me included (and I was nice to Holly).
Holly cried profusely. Mrs Oswald tried (and failed) to quiet down the class.
Slip of the tongue, what can you do?