read my lips.

When I was in elementary school, my classmates and I were submitted to all the usual extra-curricular type classes required by the state or the county or just general unwritten public school rules. We had music and spanish and drama. In music we learned about composers and in spanish we learned about the confusing idea of objects having genders. I am at a complete loss as to what we learned in drama. Most of the time we had a male teacher who later got into trouble for something or other and was not allowed to teach little children anymore.

But during my first grade year, we had Ms. Reis. She did teach some sort of acting, as I distinctly remember being a puppy learning to walk. But she also taught ventriloquism. She had a dummy named Dr. Pepper. This was back in the day when I was insanely popular and all the little first grade boys had crushes on me. And so somehow, maybe from the suggestion of all the little first grade boys, Dr. Pepper developed a crush on me. First grade merriment ensued.

Through Dr. Pepper, Ms. Reis taught us how to talk without moving our lips. She taught us the troublesome letters, like B and V, which you couldn't really say without the use of your lips. There were only about six of these letters, and I figured that was a pretty low percentage. I was amazed at all the things you could say without looking like you said it.

And I loved ventriloquism. We were encouraged to bring in our own puppets. I brought a sock that I swiped from Daddy's drawer because I was not one of those rich kids that had a lot of impressive puppets lying around. For the other poor kids, the ones without the imagination to bring a sock, Ms. Reis supplied giant sesame seed hamburger buns to use for practice.

I wouldn't dare say that I am any good at ventriloquism. It's not something that I would attempt for a living. But it's useful. Ms. Reis shared her lovely craft, and gave me a fabulous way to talk in class and never, ever get in trouble. Between minimizing lip movement and perfecting the art of saying something just loud enough to be heard by neighbors but not by teachers, I talked pretty much nonstop all the way through college. The only times I got in trouble were the times that whoever I was talking to had not mastered those arts. Sometimes my teachers suspected me, since people around me would be hiding snickers and I'd be sitting there with the most innocent of looks on my face. But they didn't hear me, and they didn't see my lips move. What could they do?

But here's the best part, particularly if you're a big fan of irony like I am. Ms. Reis was only our drama teacher that one year. I didn't see her again until sixth grade, when she suddenly became my chorus teacher. Apparently she was a woman of many talents. I sat in the middle of the third row of her class, and again, I amused myself during class by making constant comments under my breath. One day, Ms. Reis was griping about a couple of girls who were talking during her class. She asked why they couldn't be quiet all the time, just like Sandra. My neighbors, the only witnesses to my crimes of conversation, were amazed. The moment was probably the only time in the class that I was silent, but only because I was trying so hard not to laugh. It's harder to do that without moving your lips.