Teachers Have No Heart

I don't know what song would go with this story. It must be something I haven't heard, like "Teachers have more fun." I'll have to google that someday.

I must have been 11. I don't even know why I try to guess my age. I know that I was young, I liked to play badminton, I listened to the Beatles, and I had not yet reached middle school. There were also very, very strange things happening to my body.

Now, I already knew I liked girls. Even if you don't count 1st grade kiss tag, I was still only 9 when I first experienced the incredible, debilitating touch of a woman's lips. She was a beautiful (I could recognize this fact even at 9!), brown-skinned, ebony-haired Polynesian woman. I was getting off the plane in Hilo, Hawaii for summer vacation in 1981. My memory isn't so great, by the way. I happen to have a t-shirt with 'HAWAII 81' written in large white letters, as well as a scrapbook full of pictures with the dates on them. She put a lei around my neck and kissed me on the cheek! And she was wearing lipstick! And she was not my mother! In my fantasy-world, all six billion and whatever people in the world read my blog. So, if you are Polynesian, and were a greeter in Hilo in 1981, thank you a thousand times over!

So, back to the classroom. I'm guessing this would have put me in fifth grade. I am sure it was an uneventful day, probably in the spring or fall. My teacher was by no means tough. I think I actually kind of enjoyed that year. Plenty of time to daydream. Of course, somehow that led to catastrophe. That was the year my penis started growing at random moments - for no reason! It could have been a breeze from an open window, a sudden shifting in my seat, a girl in shorts walking by, the smell of pizza. I don't know. But there it was, several times a day. It took long minutes of focus and concentration, as well as absolute stillness to remedy this problem (if I only had such problems today)!

Unfortunately, one of these moments came up during reading hour. And my teacher, like few before her, always demanded her students stand up while reading. Right. Why not just tell me to take my pants of and give everybody a biology lesson. I kept my head down, hoping not to be called upon, and concentrated...go away! go away! go away! I didn't realize you were supposed to think about baseball or fishing or the boring old history teacher who picks his nose. Nope. And of course, she decides to choose ME to read!

I am convinced she knew exactly what was happening. How can you be an adult, teach a classroom full of puberty-stricken boys, and not know why little Donnie over there is avoiding eye contact? Do you go back to your teacher's lounge at the end of the day and swap stories? Yeah. Must be a fucking riot.

Smartly, I smoothly picked up my book as I stood, keeping it level with my pants. It was hard to see way down there. I don't know how my teacher could have avoided bursting out in laughter, or at least feeling sorry for me and telling me to sit down. But no, I had to stand there, reading, for what seemed like a century. I don't think anyone else noticed, but I've been out of the loop before...

I soon learned to tuck it under my underwear. This strategy worked well enough save for a little bulge slightly down and to the left. Maybe I learned something after all.