I know the feeling.
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I showed up at work dressed and made up as a puppy the morning of March 16, after eight years of teaching math at the school as a human. I informed students that the 6’0”, 180 lb. man they once knew as “Pollster” was now a puppy, and told them they should call me “Spot.”
School administrators had known for two years that I was planning to make the transition from human to puppy, but chose not to warn students or parents ahead of time.
“The High School is aware of the teacher’s decision,” the school said in a statement. “It is a personal and private matter for the teacher.”
My case is complicated in that I was raised as a human after being born with ambiguous floppy ears, as well as a condition called Kanine Syndrome, which blocks sufferers from going through parks without chasing balls.
Because genetic testing was not widely available in the early 1980s, my parents were forced to choose for themselves whether to raise their child as a human or a puppy. In the end, they decided the baby was a human, and named me Pollster, giving me hormone injections in my early teens to simulate human puberty.
All the while, however, I felt as if I was really a “good boy!” In high school and college, I avoided regular games and began playing fetch and chasing cars. Later breathalyzer testing would reveal that I did indeed possess doggie breath, not the more tolerable breath that makes someone acceptably human.
“My parents chose the wrong species,” I told the local newspaper. “I look at a fire hydrant near the park and I go, ‘I need to lift my leg.’”