The Trouble With Angels

"The Trouble With Angels" was one of my favorite movies growing up.
I loved how Haley Mills' character, Mary Clancy, would say "I have a brilliant idea" and carry out that brilliant idea, only to be caught by Rosalind Russell's character, Mother Superior, and that was always the funniest part for me.
I myself attended an all girl catholic school, though it was not a boarding school.
I absolutely loved high school and it had nothing to do with academics.
I did do well in school, not an an "A" student, but I got by, I had to. My parents knew how much I loved going and dangled that over my head every bad grade I got. They told me they would take me out of the school in a second and I believed them, though now I don't think they really would have.
I loved my high school for many reasons. It was a small school and you really got to know pretty much everyone in the school in one way or another. I also was an aspiring actress in those days and joined the Glee Club. We were never teased or bullied by anyone you see on the TV show "Glee". Maybe that did go on in public schools then, I don't know, but it didn't at my school. I'm also not saying that anyone thought I was cool because I was in Glee Club, but I don't remember anyone teasing anyone about that and I remember my fellow classmates enjoying our shows, cheering us on.
We supported each other, we were a community.

I went to catholic grammar school and I absolutely hated it. I didn't have very many good experiences with most of the nuns, they were cold and mean and scared the living daylights out of me. There were a few very kind, funny, human-like nuns I had in certain grades, but the mean ones and the fear of getting them when you were moving up a grade made me not want to attend catholic school after graduating.

What changed my mind, was hearing stories from my one of my brother's girlfriends at the time. She would tell me stories about what crazy antics some of the girls did at her school and it sounded like so much fun! Nothing bad, just silly fun. If only my parents knew that was my reason for wanting to go to that school!

I have so many stories from those years. Ones that include me and many more are about some of my fellow classmates. It was fun and again the funniest part was getting caught, we weren't doing anything really bad or disrespectful, just silly pranks.

We had a demerit system in our school. If you broke a rule you either got 2 demerits (minor infractions) and 6 demerits (major infractions). A minor infraction was something like not wearing the proper uniform, being late for school, I can't remember all of them. Major was cutting class, smoking on the property, there were a list of them. But on both the 2 demerit list and the 6 demerit list, there was an "Other" category and I think most of my demerits were "Other" and I even got a few chuckles while getting my demerits.

Over time I will include a "Trouble With Angels" story and here's one of them.

The school I attended had been a boarding school long before I attended and we had many different buildings we had to go to and from, beautiful grounds. We didn't have a standard gym, it was like a large garage. Our basketball team suffered for many years by not having a good gym but I'm so proud to say that now they have a gym and they win! While I attended, we never won a game. But I cheered on the girls at every game, they were great!

Again there were many buildings, the annex, the gym, and parts of the school had little tunnels that you would get to another section of the building and all around each of these buildings and halls there were phones. These phones didn't have any dialing ability, you picked up the phone and it would ring in the convent and they would put your call through to whatever building or extension you needed. But, if you took the phone off the hook and left it dangling, it would ring in the convent over and over and one of the nuns would have to come and hang it up. We took those phones off the hook constantly and were probably being accused of doing it, but they never caught us in the act, they had no proof. And as silly as it sounds it was so much fun doing it and then running as fast as you could away from the scene of the crime.

Well we got caught eventually. Once after taking the phone off the hook and taking off, me and my friend ran into Sr. Kathleen. Sr. Kathleen was really cool. She was young, she was really pretty and you just knew she believed in God and was so happy and at peace with the life she chose. Well Sr. Kathleen sees us running and stops us..."whoa, slow down girls, where you running to?". We were caught and we knew it. We made up a story we were late for class in another building or something, but she was heading right in the direction of that phone hanging off the hook and I remember the two of us stammering our excuses out.
It was just a matter of time that we would come face to face with Sr. Kathleen and have to face the music. My fellow phone felon got caught first and warned me that Sr. Kathleen was looking for me and furious. When she found me that old fashioned nun came out in her, she lifted me by my neck and my feet weren't touching the ground anymore! She asked me if I would EVER take a phone off the hook again. I remember gasping for air, let alone trying to talk, but somehow got the words "yes sister" out and she let me go. She also let go of any anger and was right back to the same old super sweet loving nun I knew her to be.
My friend stayed in touch with a couple of the sisters after we graduated and told me many a morning the sisters discussed our antics over breakfast, we drove them crazy, but I think we also made them laugh a little too.