Mind Your Own God Damn Business

I worked at an elementary school on Friday, where, coincidentally, my mother is the librarian. One of my duties for the day was to help a group of 5th graders film the little news program that they show at the beginning of every day. We had been forced to cancel the news on this specific day because the sound went out (For the record, I suggested that they do a mime routine for 5 minutes instead. It would have been at LEAST as interesting to watch a 9 year old pretend to be trapped in a box as it would be to listen to them mumble the day’s lunch menu. My suggestion was met with scorn. High-pitched, prepubescent scorn. This is why elementary students piss me off most of the time).

I had to come back on Monday, so after school I decided to try to get the sound working. As I was walking into the computer lab, one of the students that I had in class that day introduced me to his mother. I said hello and went on my way.

It didn’t take long to realize that fixing the sound would take a minor miracle. They had patched together a system using a five year old eMac, an mailbox-sized, 50 pound 1980′s camcorder that was literally held together with packing tape, a VCR and six or seven miles of RCA cable. It was difficult to figure out what wire was going where, if everything was plugged in like it was supposed to be, or if something had just shorted out or failed somewhere.

While I was tinkering, the mother that I had been introduced to earlier came in.

She asked me a couple of questions about her son’s performance in class, which I answered. She then volunteered that she had been in a two year relationship that had recently ended, which she was sad about.

For the record, it irritates the shit out of me when people that I don’t know that well start spouting off weird personal information with no prompting three minutes after we’ve met for the first time. If we’re close, sure. Tell me that your father was an abusive drunk. If I ask you if you’re seeing someone, feel free to tell me that you just got out of a relationship. But if we’ve just exchanged hellos for the first time and after two minutes of casual conversation about the weather you inform me that you were raped by a clown when you were eight, it just sounds like you’re desperate for attention. There’s no other reason to be that eager to share.

I acted sympathetic while I continued to screw around with the video camera.

She continued to make weird small talk with me for about five more minutes. I kept responding, but started to wonder why she was still in the room, talking to me.

She asked me what grades I could sub for. I told her that I could do K-12, but I kind of preferred high school.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ll bet high school girls can’t pay attention to anything you say, ’cause they’re so busy looking at you,” She said.

I paused for a moment, suddenly realizing what was going on as a cold sweat formed on my brow.

“Well, thank you. That’s very flattering. Well, I have to go back to my classroom. It was nice to meet you!” I said while getting the hell out of the computer lab as fast as I could.

I spent a few minutes in the classroom, mostly just killing time and trying to figure out if I’d just been hit on. After a few minutes had passed, I walked back to the computer lab and poked my head in the door. The coast was clear. I then went next door to the library and checked to see if she was in there. She was gone. I walked over to my mom (she works in the library, remember?) and told her about what had happened.

“Oh, yeah, She’s normally really cranky when she’s here, but she perked up when she saw you,” my Mom said.

“She asked if you were my husband or boyfriend, and when I said no, she asked if you were single. I told her that you were.”

It turned out that I was not making things up. I had, indeed, had a parent trying to get in my pants. After a brief conversation with my mother about how if a parent ever asked her if I was single again, the appropriate response was that I had been happily married to another man for several years, I cleaned up in the lab and headed home.

Later that evening, my mother told me that the parent had been back and had told my Mom that she had done some flirting with me. Rather than telling the parent that she had forgotten to mention first time that I was in a happy, long-term and completely gay relationship, she said something along the lines of “Well, that sort of thing can be fun.”

It was a first for me. I used to think that a school was only a lousy place to meet chicks because the only women in a school are married teachers who are older than me and crazy students who are younger than me. I didn’t realize that there was another entire different demographic that I don’t want to make out with.

I wonder if it’s too late for me to change careers. “Professional Athlete” seems like a pretty good option at this point. They seem to make pretty good money.