Something to Talk About

Maybe I should have titled this post "Nothing to Talk About." I have
waited all day for an idea to hit me, but it hasn't. Several cars almost
did, but no ideas. After the 3rd car pulled out in front of us today,
#1 son said, "Mom, don't you wish all cars were like bumper cars?"
Still, he couldn't give me anything good to talk about.

Then a few minutes ago I got to thinking about times I was speechless,
which are few and far between. I thought of how I really do talk too
much, especially at times I should not. Good thing faculty meetings
don't have bouncers.

Back in the day when I taught at my haunted school, we had most
of our meetings in the library. I made the mistake of sitting by my
friend "Betty" at the coaches' table. Now one of these choices alone
would have been bad enough, because all those other coaches were
men, and not very well-behaved. And just the act of sitting by Betty
made certain that I would get into trouble.

Betty taught 4th grade. I'm sure you all know what a bar-fly is. Well,
Betty was a lounge-fly. Every chance she got, she hung out in the
teachers' lounge. Now we have to be politically correct and call it
the teachers' workroom, but back then we were allowed to lounge.
I never hung out there because it was a long walk from the gym, I
didn't smoke (yes, teachers were allowed to SMOKE on SCHOOL
GROUNDS back then. Told you I was old!) and I didn't have a lot
to gossip about, being isolated down in the gym with one other teacher.

I had to go ask Betty something about our middle school girls'
basketball uniforms, way up past the lounge in the elementary
building. She had her classroom set up so that kids were facing
away from her desk, which was right by the door. I knocked and
she said, "Come on in." She was sitting at her desk with a compact,
applying lipstick. One of the boys turned around when I came in.
Betty told him, "You don't need to be turning around to see what I'm
doing, Herman. I'm going to the lounge in a few minutes and I don't
want to look like a dog." Those elementary teachers were an odd,
bunch, and Betty was their ringleader.

Getting back to the meeting. The men talked about playing golf.
One read the sports section. Betty was bored and started
commenting on people's clothes. We were being told that we
couldn't wear denim because somebody had complained to the
school board that we dressed too casually. Betty raised her hand
and said, "So your mean that Bob over there can wear his $10
polyester Wal-mart pants, but Fran can't wear her $75 denim
dress?" Yes, that's what they meant.

Betty snorted and then the secretary of CTA stood up to read
minutes from their last meeting. She was at the table right in front
of us. She looked kind of like Big Bird, but with gray hair. She
read off a stenographer's notebook. Betty snorted again and
whispered something to me. I couldn't hear, and had to ask her
twice to repeat it. Finally she whisper-shouted: "HER BUTT'S
HAVING LUNCH." I looked at Big Bird's white cotton pants,
and indeed, they were jammed up in her butt-crack. That got
me started laughing, and then Betty started laughing, and Betty's
friend Wilma, sitting at the end of Big Bird's table gave us the
stink-eye and mouthed "behave!" That made us laugh harder,
until the tears ran down our cheeks because we were trying
to laugh silently, and Wilma started laughing, and the whole
room that had been looking at Big Bird was now watching us.
The men just threw up their hands like "not our problem--we
we just sitting here listening." Just when were thought we had
stopped, one of us would look at the other, or at Wilma, and
it would start again. Whew, was I tired at the end of that
meeting!

We didn't get in trouble, but my principal, who was also athletic
director, came back to our table and said, "I want some of
whatever you two had before this meeting."