[stupid people] revel in their cleverness

When I was in first year university, I'd sit at the back of the room with two mates and pretend to make fun of the lecturer who was one of those very brittle characters who took herself oh so seriously.

One day she'd had enough and one of the other lecturers, whom most students liked, took me aside and asked what I'd done to anger Nina so much that she'd stormed into the staffroom, throwing her bag at a chair and starting to mouth obscenities.

She got her revenge later by demanding that I seek psychological counselling - from her [she taught psychology]. She asked why I always took a contrary position to her and tried to argue with her superior knowledge, why I had such hate in me.

Still I didn't learn.

The following year I fooled around in politics tutorials, feeling I'd pass politics easily [I'd had 90% at school]. The tutor was an entirely different kettle of fish. He never said one word but at the end of the year, asked me where my assignments were.

There weren't any. He gave me till Friday afternoon.

Suddenly I realized the pickle I was in. I begged him to let me do them in "point form" and he never replied. I spent all evening at the uni library four nights running and wrote at breakneck speed, finally finishing the last one on Friday around 3 p.m.

Still time to get them to him. He wasn't there in his room. The bstd had gone home early. Still, I left them on his desk and as there was no exam, just course work, I thought I was home and hosed.

The day of the posting of results came and in two key subjects, failure was out. One of those was politics. He'd failed me and had not even graded them, on the grounds that they didn't fulfil the instructions, as given in the faculty guidebook.

That was the day I learnt that people don't like the p--s being taken out of them. They tend to store it up and it comes out later. Mild-mannered people become quietly vindictive and bide their time.

They get you later, sometimes much later and the quiet ones who don't rant and rave are the most dangerous.