A true story about a very small world, part III.

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake (continued)

It is a truth universally acknowledged generally recognized known to the few stalwarts who have put up with my presence for any length of time that Mrs. E has only two strategies when confronted with potential personal crisis: a) unplug the phone, curl up in a ball on the bathroom floor and lock the door or b) dive headfirst into the deeps and attempt to surf the roiling waves of human strife with honesty (rudeness), integrity (bullheadedness) and wit (sarcasm). Both involve nausea, cramping, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating, chills and a constant heartrate only slightly lower than a hummingbird’s. Neither is fun to watch. Neither works very well.

B never, ever happens until she has been forced out of the bathroom.

Thanks to The Kid, I didn’t even have time for the puking to begin.

A true story about a very small world, part II.

(I published the first part of this before and took it down; now parts 2 and 3 are finished and I thought what the hell. Sue me. Part 1 is below.)

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake (continued)

Because of course, I was lying through my lovely veneered teeth.

We had dated, if the definition of “dating” can be understood to include “screwing around during a season of summer rep before Ms. Euphrosyne had matured enough to end an existing relationship honestly, thereby employing the classic technique of using the fling as a catalyst with no intention of ever taking it, or him, seriously.” It had seemed so perfect, in a sleazy way. He was almost ten years older, living and going to graduate school across the country in the fairytale world of C___________, and most importantly, he had played the end of the summer beautifully in harmony with my narcissistic needs.

Yes, it was fine that we date other people. Yes, we should stay in touch. Yes, maybe we could arrange a meeting at some unspecified future time, but there was to be no pressure, no obligation. I was nineteen, a late bloomer in full and raging efflorescence, and the last thing I wanted was a commitment of any kind. He was almost insultingly fine with that. I cried when I left my new friends that August; I could barely speak to the man I truly had a terrible crush on; I said good-bye to the fling with not a flutter of regret, and he was just as calm.

A true story about a very small world.

(I published the first part of this before and took it down; now parts 2 and 3 are finished and I thought what the hell. Sue me.)

Mrs. E and the Big Mistake

There is no doubt that I showed spectacularly poor judgment; not head-through-a-windshield or hey-I’m-in-jail poor judgment, but poor nonetheless. In retrospect, however, I feel a substantial portion of blame (and isn’t that what it’s all about, really?) should rest squarely on the skinny shoulders of The Kid Who Should Have Been in Honors English. You always get at least one in the chaos of wildly varied adolescent humanity that is “regular” freshman English: the transfer whose records haven’t made it yet, the eighth-grade binge drinker who is now sober with a 1.3 grade average, the emotionally disturbed introvert disguising rage as apathy, or the most depressing type, the hard-drugging 17-year-old total waste of potential.

The Kid in this instance was a classic transfer delay. He was polite, he was smart, he knew all the answers, he was a typical late-maturing male – he was exactly like most of the guys in all my own high school classes. Fortunately for The Kid’s health and well-being, he was also funny and rather pretty, a favorite with the regular English pep squad girls, although their approval did not extend to thinking of him as a potential sexual partner. The popular girls adopted him, petted him, laughed at his jokes – and you can bet your sweet ass that meant most of the boys did not give in to their natural instinct to kill off the weakest pack member. Even the most hormone-addled teenage boy knows you don’t kick the hot chick’s dog. So The Kid, unlike most of his misplaced kind, enjoyed a relatively peaceful scholastic existence.

Talk to your kids about sex – or I will.

Background: high school teacher for seven years. Recent parent of a daughter. Flaming liberal, according to most of my reactionary acquaintances (gotcha, you label whores). Hate labels. Love sex. Agnostic, if I have to label it.

In short, just about as secular a secular humanist as ever made a fundamentalist’s gorge rise.

And I’m going back to teaching. Soon.

So when your kids ask me the questions they’re afraid to ask you, chances are I’ll answer them. Not in front of the class, of course, and in the most responsible manner I know how… but I’m going to tell them what I think, not what you want them to hear, or worse yet, don’t want them to hear. If you have any kind of agenda on this subject, your first priority needs to be to get the hell over your own insecurities and talk about it.

For the record, every legitimate study EVER done about sex education shows that the more kids know, the longer they wait and the healthier they stay. Period. The end. If you think,”Don’t do it,” is going to work, you’re a willful idiot.

Here’s a tiny sampling of some of the information I’ve given out.

Parent phone conference: a response

An Open Letter to the Concerned Parent with Whom I Recently Had a Phone Conference

Dear Ms. Three Surnames Down the Marital Road from Your Child’s Last Name,

Tonight, after downing two Cosmopolitans, I feel that it’s time to abandon the pat answers and glib jargon of our earlier conversation. We are two adults who share responsibility for the growth and development of a human soul. Surely we can come to a meeting of minds and arrive at a plan of action which may give fifteen-year-old R_____ a better chance, both in school and in life. Here, then, are my honest answers to the pressing questions you posed.

“Why is my son failing your class?”