About this episode

The episode recounts a humorous and chaotic summer experience with a Catholic nun hired to help a family practice English after the father's death.

In 1976, I came to the United States of America to spend the summer. The funny part is that my mom, after my father died, decided to hire a Catholic nun from the United States. When I said “hire,” she actually sought an agency to see if there was a nun that could come and live in our house so we could practice English while my mother was working and would help us with our homework. Alas, that didn’t last very long because we drove the nun, Sister Mary Hubert, crazy. She was probably around 55 years old, a good woman, a good nun, but maybe her ways were too stiff for these four little devils that, after my father died, unconsciously unleashed the worst possible behavior that any children could have, ages 4 to 10. What happened in the following months upon her arrival was like a tug of war between kids who did not want to be disciplined and a mother who was constantly absent because she was in the office taking care of her affairs, so she could not be the authority she would like to be. She gave the reins to the nun, and the nun lost her grip within six weeks. We got her drunk, saw her naked while she took a shower when we hid in the bathroom closet. One after another incident led…

More episodes of I am OPTimist

• An Ongoing Wavelength of Change · July 17, 2026 · 10 min
• Contingency · July 10, 2026 · 4 min
• THE AUTONOMOUS LOCAL ENGINE · July 6, 2026 · 4 min
• The body’s silence as whispers can be slightly heard. · June 27, 2026 · 3 min
• The Hungry Ghost Liberates Itself · June 20, 2026 · 23 min
• Multiple Brains, Zero Subscriptions, one Artifact · June 17, 2026 · 10 min

Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the I am OPTimist podcast page.