Last week in Walgreen’s I ran into an old pal, Mike Shene. Then again, he’s a hard guy to miss, since he stands about 6-foot-5-inches in his stocking feet.

Mike and I go way back. He lived in Bloomingdale, where he went to grade school. Then for seventh grade he came to Petrova, which is where we met, in the fall of ’58. Obviously, he was a standout basketball player.

We were pals in a casual sense, rather than an intimate one. Still, I know Mike well enough to know he holds a school (perhaps even a world) record. And, no, it’s not an athletic one. It kicked off in the fall of our junior year, in chemistry class.

To even half-understand the context of that class, you’ll need some vital background, so here ’tis …

The teacher was Carl Marseliese. He came from Baton Rouge, and had an accent you could cut with a chainsaw. He also was perhaps the least fit person to be a teacher … in the entire history of teaching.

Apparently, he’d been a stock broker, when the market took a huge hit and he lost his job. Then, for reasons known only to him and perhaps God Almighty Hisself, he decided to go into teaching.

It was apparent from the moment he hit town, he was completely out of his element. He hated the north, he hated the cold, and he hated teaching. And for the next year he was stuck up to his eyeballs in all three.

If you’ve never taught, let me share a secret: No matter how long you were a student and no matter how good a student you were, nothing, but nothing, can prepare you for being on the other side of the desk. A homey analogy: If you were a daily passenger in a 747 for the past 10 years, you’d still have no idea how to fly the sucker.

One’s teaching cluelessness becomes apparent within mere minutes of your first class. And when it does, you have a few options. One is to spend every waking minute bustin’ your hump, trying to learn all you can about the honored profession. Another option is to fake it … and keep faking it. The third is just to give up and say to hell with it. After that, you’ll stay like that till your first year is up, after which you’ll never revisit a classroom again, except in your worst nightmares.

Marseliese chose the last option. As a result, his class was an utter, irredeemable disaster.

He didn’t even pretend to present material in any organized manner. Instead, he’d mention a bunch of things that may or may not have had to do with chemistry, and then let the class devolve into chaos. The result was a freakish combination of Cheech and Chong’s “Sister Mary Elephant” and Lord of the Flies.

Given that setting, while academics died on the vine, rowdyism flourished. The class rowdies weren’t bad kids, per se. They weren’t sociopaths or sadists — they just started acting like them. Given the near-lethal combination of hormones and hooliganism, they acted out in ways that would’ve made Penrod Scofield’s little black heart swell with pride. And thus, one day in the spirit of mini-macho mischief-making, a few of Mike’s pals thought a swell joke would be to pour acid on his desk seat — which they did.

The result was predictable: By the time Mike started to feel warm all over, the seat of his pants was a distant memory. Luckily, he got hip to it before his skivs and skin went south too. But since he couldn’t walk around like that, he did the only thing he could — he hitch-hiked home, got a new pair of pants, and hitched back to town.

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The saga continues …

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Since he’d cut school, he was in a hurry to get back in class. He sprinted up Main Street, cut the corner by the town hall, and cut it too close, because he snagged his pants a trash can. Those old-school trash cans, if you never saw one, were dark green, made of steel about Sherman tank thick, and had some fabulously sharp edges. So when Mike’s pants caught on one of the edges, it sliced them from pocket to cuff.

So there he was, both his pants and his dupa in the wind. What to do? He hoofed it to school, went to his gym locker, and donned a pair of orange sweatpants he’d stolen from the Potsdam locker room on an away game. It seemed a perfect solution to his dilemma … and it would probably be today. But back in those more formal times, it was a no-no, which he found out the second he walked into French class.

Madame Godson took one look at him, shook her head, and pointing at his sweats, said, “Alors, Michel, those … those things are not appropriate for school. Jamais!”

So now what?

Now Mike did the only thing he could: He hitched back to B’dale, picked up another pair of pants, and hitched back to town. Luckily, this time he got to Petrova and finished the school day with both his pants and pride intact. Plus, he could now relax, knowing his pants trauma was over. I mean, think about it — what are the odds a kid could tear three pairs of pants in one day? I’m neither a mathematician nor a gambler, but I’d gladly give odds of 100 to 1 — against. And if I did, I would’ve lost a small fortune.

As I said, Mike finished the school day with no rips, tears, or slices in his pants. Unfortunately, he didn’t finish the entire day like that.

After school, he walked Debbie Robinson home. Debbie lived on Leona street, right across from the overpass. From Petrova to her house might’ve been 100 yards, so what could go wrong in such a short distance? Nothing. And nothing did — at least on the way to her house. But as soon as Mike said goodbye and started to walk away, all hell broke loose.

Debbie’s dog, normally the most docile of pooches, suddenly went into Defcon 1. Then, misunderstanding Mike’s intentions (or perhaps understanding them perfectly), he let out an ear-splitting bark, launched, and took a mighty chunk out of both Mike’s pants and posterior.

It’s a sad tale, but one that serves a good purpose. And what could that be, you ask?

Just this: Next time you hear someone say Good things come in threes, you say, “Oh? You really think so?”

Then they’ll say, “Why? You don’t?’

And with a too-smug grin on your mug, you can say, “No. And let me tell ya about it.”