You used to live with who???

My friend is a teacher and there is a rumour going around her school which is potentially the most awesome thing that I have ever heard.

All of her students believe that for a while, she lived with bears.

Now is that not just the coolest thing that you have ever heard?

Unfortunately, there is absolutely no truth in the rumour but imagine everyone thinking that of you.

From what I have heard from her, the school that she teaches in is pretty much like hell on earth and the kids sound like mixtures of Stewie Griffin and Chuckie. Not somewhere that I would want to be - I've got a lot of admiration for her.

Another friend and I have been trying to encourage this friend to use this rumour to her advantage in order to freak out the kids and really put the fear of God into them.

We have suggested that she could make a real show of doing a bit of howling at home time. Picture the scene, the kids are all flooding out of the school gates, it's getting dark because it's winter and suddenly they hear a strange noise. They glance to the open window of her classroom and there she is, framed by the moonlight, howling. That would freak them out and no doubt make them behave a little better in class.

Please ignore the fact that bears don't really howl. I don't think that that really matters. The kids wont know that and a good howl really lets off some steam.

We also suggested that she should strategically place some framed photos of her hanging out with some bears on her desk, courtesy of Photoshop of course. She should make sure that the kids see them but if they ask any questions, she should just slowly remove the framed picture from her desk and slide it into her drawer and tell the class that she can't talk about it because the memories are just 'too painful'.

This tactic adds a 'tortured soul' vibe to the rumour. As though she wishes that she could still be hanging out in her cave with her bear family but instead she is there teaching them, meaning that she is doing them a favour and that there is a distinct chance that she could leave (or flip out) at any minute.

The way we see it, teenagers might be pretty gullible so surely playing with them a little bit would be lots of fun.

Other ideas that we had to mess with their heads were to be spotted chewing on raw meat as the kids enter the class or staring thoughtfully into the distance and when interrupted, answering them in bear speak. Some poetic license would be allowed here as i'm pretty sure that my friend doesn't know what bear speak is. I could be wrong though. Come to think of it, she does slightly resemble a bear.

I think of all the rumours that you could have going around about you, there is no doubt that this is the coolest that I have ever heard. If it's possible, it makes my friend even cooler than she is at the moment, which is ridiculously cool anyway. I kinda want to believe the rumours myself. In fact, I think that I might start trying to spread it myself.

Hey, by the way, did you know that my friend used to live with bears. Yeah....she's a total bad ass. I wouldn't recommend making her angry.