Lord have mercy....

I had a PTSD moment yesterday afternoon, in the A&P. There I was, just doing a spot of grocery shopping on my lunch break, when suddenly I saw It turn down the soda aisle and walk in my direction. 


I froze. Involuntarily balled my hands into fists and tucked them under my ribs (to hide my palms). I could not blink. I could not breathe. I began to break out in a cold sweat. I wanted to run, but I was frozen, rooted to the spot; and it kept coming closer, and closer, and closer...


...


There was a NUN in the soda aisle. 


This is a perfect example of how one bad egg can ruin things for everybody else. In my long and infuriating Catholic school education, I encountered a number of perfectly pleasant nuns. Sister Linda--high school religion teacher--was practically a saint. Despite the beard, she always had lovely kind words for everyone. Just one of those genuinely good and nice people. 


Sister Clara, however, was another story. Sister Clara is the reason I go into panic mode when I see a nun. I still have nightmares about her--horrible dreams in which I am forced to go back to that hellhole of a grade school and Sister Clara is always there, with her silver rosary and her wooden ruler. 


Sister Clara is the embodiment of every horror you ever believed about the Catholic Church.

(That picture doesn't even do her justice, but it was the best of several attempts at catching her Evil essence.)


In my grade school (where I suffered from kindergarten through eight grade--that's NINE years), we didn't actually have any teachers who were nuns or priests, but instead the nuns and priests would just show up a couple times a week and talk to our class, or lecture us, or perhaps try and start a Jesus-themed discussion. And of course there was the "sex ed" session in sixth grade with Sisters Clara and Mary (I've blocked most of that out). Most of these priests and nuns were fine; some of them were even very nice. Father Carl, who was around 375 years old, used to bring us all sorts of fun goodies and souvenirs from his trips to the Vatican.


But Sister Clara was just downright evil. She looked like a troll--short and squat and rather wide, iron-grey hair sticking out of her veil, and with a face that always appeared furious. She had one of those heavy wooden crosses hanging from her belt and would swing it back and forth while she walked like some sort demented holy jailer. She had a set of silver rosary beads that she would fondle, gazing at us children menacingly as though she would like nothing more than to throttle us with those beads. And she always had the wooden ruler. One of those old heavy ones with the bit of metal running through the middle (for making straighter lines, and inflicting maximum pain).

Sure she wasn't legally allowed to hit us, but that never stopped her. She had perfected using the ruler in such a way that it did not leave a mark. And of course no parent would believe that a nun would hit innocent children. Most of us were too afraid to tell our parents, but those few who did either got the "I don't believe you" response; or their parents told them that if a nun hit them, then they probably deserved it. One of her favorites was whacking the girls on the thigh if she caught us sitting with our legs crossed (like whores) instead of with our feet crossed at the ankles (like ladies). 


Sister Clara liked to yell and scream at us children, telling us that we were all sinners and that even if you THINK bad things it's a sin, and God is watching you and listening to you all the time, and He can even read your mind, so there's absolutely no escaping. She liked to remind us that were all going to burn in Hell in everlasting fire because we were all such horrible, nasty little children. Imagine hearing all that at the tender age of eight, spewing from the mouth of an evil troll-nun. 


One incident in particular sticks out in my mind. This one time in fifth grade, when we were all about 10 years old, Sister Clara was having a particularly difficult time with my class (we were not very well-behaved even at the best of times). She decided to march us down a dark and little-used hallway to an unused classroom, where she shut and locked the door, and made us all line up against the wall. She raged and screamed at us for what felt like a very long time, and then she told us to hold out our hands. She went down the line of children, giving each of us a good wallop with her trusty ruler. 


Scarred for life.