In the fourth grade our teacher, Mrs. Fisher--with her flaming orange hair and clown red lipstick applied liberally outside the lines of her lips would say things like "whatever rattles your cage" and warned a dim classmate to stop pulling out his own hair otherwise he'd be "bald as a billiard ball." (Like any of us knew what billiards were.) She was like a small town version of Lucille Ball--but scarier. My best friend Carol and I were having an imaginary pie throwing fight