Sex and the Single Teacher part 3: Women Seeking Men

For those of you just joining us, welcome to the internet dating experiment. I'm not a woman, but I play one on my blog. The ads are facetious- I just wanted a peek into the mentality of the internet dating world. The last one, Men seeking Women, yielded typical results, that of fake women trolling for my email address, trying to get me to shell out for booty photos. And so, let us see what happens when we juxtapose the genders.


WOMEN SEEKING MEN (Casual Encounters Section)

The Advert:

Seeking to Discipline-30 Strong, professional woman, PhD, independent and self-actualized seeks SWM who needs a little “discipline”. BBW, 6’7”, confident, and 2 months pregnant. I choose this for myself and have no need for someone to be a stand-in for a Baby Daddy. The hormones are kicking in, however, and I need someone to fill me up. I am a dominant searching for a submissive- you must earn your way into the Promised Land. Your pic gets mine. No penis photos.

RESPONSE #1:

Not even 5 minutes after posting, I get my first response, the subject line reading

HOT HUNG ITALIAN SUB

Which is awesome, as it only needs four letters removed to sound like a Jimmy John’s Sandwich Special. He’s been kind enough to not directly show me his goods, but close e-goddam-nough. But, hey, I’m a lady, I get to bide my time and choose- I don’t need to reply just yet.

RESPONSES #2-8

All within 10 minutes of posting, one guy from his iPhone. Jesus, who the fuck trolls craigslist ads from their phone?

Clearly, I’m going to have weed out a few of my suitors out of the dating pool, pull the plug on their sprinklers, so to speak. I’m also worried that they might make me if I don’t change my email. So time to set up a new address. I’m going with the tag
Mistresshelga67. I think it’s cute.

RESPONSES #9- 87 Kajillion

There really are too many. Still, though, this dominatrix thing is great, every response, while completely perverted, retains a gentlemanly ambiance. If I were a 6’7” BBW PhD, I’d definitely consider my dominatrix options. There are quite a lot of requests for face-sitting, plus, every 5th guy or so complements me on my pregnancy. A few choice quotes:

“I want you to sit on my face and dominate me, use me as your sex slave like the filthy man-whore I am. Make lick your asshole around and around, tease me with you breast and pump my cock with your hand. Let me know.Sorry for the long email, I sort of got carried away:)”

“Make lick”? Sorry, dude, points off for bad grammar.

“Your(sic) 6 ft 7inches? Thats(sic) hot.”
Don’t I know it, sweetie. Mistress Helga needs you to use your apostrophes.

“Young guy ready to serve your every need. Big foot fetish and would love to have you facesit on me. No strings attached you Dom me sub action”
-Sent from my iPhone

You shouldn’t be able to send this from your iPhone. Drunk-dialing is a scary enough prospect.

“I won’t bore you with stories of my sexual prowess or the enormity of my cock – although I have been told both are impressive.”

Eh. You just did.

“I would be happy to fulfill your needs during your time of your pregnancy.(btw - congtrats!). I don't know the details but would love to chat. I'm sane, d&d free, considerate. However, I'm nowhere near 6-7, hope that's not a problem.”

Hey, dude, you win points for the ‘congrats’, although check your spelling. Don’t get hung up on the height thing- Mistress Helga knows she Kicks Ass.

“Pls know that i am not a CL faker or BS artist. Not a hustler or a game player.”

Yea, yea, No one is if you ask them. Shit, watch this- “I am not a CL faker.” See how easy that was, and yet, how untrue?

“…want you to sit on my face and dominate me….”

Always with the face-sitting. Do these people understand I’m 6’7”? I could hurt somebody.

“…limits are scat, underage and permanent marks.”

Uggh. As least we share limits. Isn’t ‘scat’ used for other species? Does this mean human feces are OK?

“serving as a maid?”

Did I SAY maid? Do your homework.

“Good afternoon, hope you are well. Would you be up for someone to worship your feet? Are you really 6'7" or is that a typo?”

See, at least he read the ad. Did I mention at least 1/3 of these fellas are into the foot fetish? Why is that? Feet mostly just stink.

“Hi there, my name is J*** and I am 25 and live downtown in the financial district. I am 5’10’’ in good shape and am exceedingly well endowed. I have long maintained a fascination with slightly more mature women – and find that they make the best lovers.”

‘Slightly more mature?’ I’m only 30, for fuck’s sake. Thumbs down.

“Dr. Mistress I saw your advertisement I am a foot shorter than you and require your pregnant discipline.”

I’m pregnant. The discipline is not.

“I am highly experienced with most areas of bondage, dominance and submission. As a male Dom, I have enjoyed giving corporal punishment, such as spankings and floggings and general torture since 1980.”

An Established Mom and Pop Spanking. Thank goodness for Olde Tyme Values.


You would think the most disturbing thing about this little experiment would be how easily I found myself slipping into the role of the Dominatrix, and it was sort of spooky. We all should be able to vote for who we want to be reincarnated as, ‘cause I definitely found my calling. Still, though, this is difficult. Is this what women go through all the time? I feel like I’m rummaging through a pile of half-assed resumes, written with crayon and smattered with coffee-stain rings, such is the quality and care of the responses. Are all men this clumsy? Am I?

Another disturbing aspect is that I’m starting to feel a little guilty, like a tease. I’m not sure if I should or not- this is really an ad calling out for some fantasy role playing, and aren’t I providing a service, some fodder for this, albeit mostly for my own amusement? For this reason, I don’t email any of the more carefully rendered responses back, as I don’t want them to get their hopes up. I email back a few poorly written ones, the guys who don’t put in a lot of effort, and the small dialogue doesn’t bear mentioning. Well, there was one guy who was going to cook up a meal, and I started to get interested in the prospect, having him design a menu and everything, before ducking out, remembering that I am not, in fact, a dominatrix, and he’d almost certainly kick 17 types of shit out of me if he found out all his efforts were for a currently underemployed snarky blogger.

Really, the most disturbing part is how goddamn NORMAL all these guys look. A few I’m imagining I even recognize (isn’t that Chuck from East Quad, back in college? Wow, he’s a lawyer now.) I’m not going to be able to leave the house without looking at the bank tellers suspiciously. Oh fuck, that’s not true. I’m a man myself, been one my whole life, and I know we are all pigs. This is no surprise. I fear, though, I’m going to have problems if I continue the logical extension of this experiment. Soon it will be, as my homosexual buddy likes to say, “time to be getting’ gay.” It’ll be bad enough to try and pretend to be a gay man, but it’s the lesbians who are gonna make me, I’m sure of it.

COMING SOON: Men Seeking Men

Sex and the Single Teacher part 3: Men Seeking Women

There was never meant to be a part 3.

I was supposed to be hitched, done, out of the pool, dried off, re-clothed, outside the YMCA and reading the New York Times in a coffee and bagel store.

Now I’m single again, and I’m not at all used to the idea. They say it takes half the time of the relationship you were in to get over it, and so I’ve probably got a while. Still, though, one must make hesitant steps towards moving on, and so I’m scrolling through the Women Seeking Men ads, not because I intend to contact anyone, but because, well, I guess I can now.

They are exactly what you would expect.

There is much talk of theatre, an interest in actually leaving the house, eating food, long walks, soulful overtones injected into mundane and inoffensive activities. They are generic, hesitant, a broad net cast in hopes of catching any fish, and perhaps a fear of sounding exclusive and opinionated.

Others are specific, a laundry list of requirements, each bullet point telling containing its own story of failures past. They don’t want ‘game players’, they do want honesty, you have to be OK with a kid, a weight problem, an STD. Its remarkably efficient and honest, the new dating scene, but many of these people go too far. I’m short- should I be ruled out over a serial adulterer? He can lie- I can’t grow 2 extra inches.

Still, though, one I find amusing. I couldn’t find it again if I tried, but it’s sort of blasting the whole notion of specificity, and concurrently, generic taglines. This woman says something to the tune of “ …And why do you all say you like long walks on the beach? That’s why I don’t go to the beach anymore. Too damn many of y’all, walking around aimlessly, pretending you like Jazz and theatre and moonlit nights. You aren’t that sensitive. You’re men, just be men.”

Something like that anyway.

I email her, I tell her I think her ad is funny, and she replies, and goes on a little more about how all the ads are too damn specific.

This resonates with me, and I come up with a plan.

The problem with summers off is that all the stupid ideas that cross your brain in a day….well, you have time to execute them. I have no intention of going on a Craigslist date at the moment, but the notion of the uber-specific ad is funny to me, and so I decide to post.


MEN SEEKING WOMEN

The Advert:

OPEN MINDED GENTLEMAN-35

You: Between 5’6”- 5’7 1/2”, brunette (chestnut w/red highlights preferred), weight range of 115-125, Stanford educated, olive complexion, Virgo w/Sagittarius rising, divorced for no less than 2 years, left leg ½” shorter than right, w/mild scoliosis, in search of LTR, SAA, SWM, OPP, FCC, VIP and EPA.

Me: Into long walks on the beach, candlelight dinners, opera (because sensitive men love the opera), travel, food (not for consumption), communication, light body hair, excessive ear wax. You must be OK with this.

NO: Trannies, lefties( southpaws OR communists), fatties, Ford drivers, flag-burners, knitters, walkers, eaters, sleepers or game players. Sorry, but that’s just how I feel.

Must posses own Segway.

Now, I don’t really expect anyone to reply unless they get the joke. Still I get a couple replies, generically written, mentioning nothing about the ad. I’m clearly not a Mensa candidate, but I can tie my own shoes, and it requires a similar IQ to see where this is going. If these are even real people, they are baiting me, trying for my email address, gearing up to flood my inbox with Viagra offers, penis pumps, whatever. I can’t complain- am I not baiting them as well? I figure the polite thing to do is reply. You know, start some discourse. See if they bite. I use an old email account, one infected with penis pill adverts some years ago. See? I can even button my shirt up correctly if you give me a couple of tries.

RESPONSE #1:

To: Clarence Bean
From: Filia Alida

Hey, My name is filia, I just found your post on craigslist. Just to let you know some stuff about me, I just turned 28 last month, and i?ve lived here for three months. It's hard to find a good man now a days. So i thought i'd try craigslist. If you are interested in getting to know me.. shoot me an email. Talk to you soon

To: Filia Alida
From: Clarence Bean

Filia,

Thank you for responding to my ad. My questions for you are:

How tall are you? I have requirements.

Do you like food?(not for consumption)

Are you in possession of a Segway?

Hope to hear from you soon,

Clarence Bean.

PS. I sincerely hope you are a human being, and not a penis enlargement tablet. I would be crushed.

To: Clarence Bean
From: Filia Alida

Whassup, S*****? (Ed. Note: she figured out my real name from my email address. I feel like I’ve just been made, but I press on nonetheless) want to take a break from what youre(sic) doing? I just logged into my cam site, if you want to have a little fun. Let me know if youre(sic) interested, ill check back in a few cutie

To: Filia Alida
From: Clarence Bean

My Goodness.

Filia, I am heartened that you are a real person, and not a tablet. I'm so lonely. What is a 'cam site'? I surely would like to have a little fun. Do you like Segways? This is what I consider the penultimate of fun. Did you know that most people use the word 'penultimate' incorrectly? It does not mean ‘ultimate', but a sort of secondary 'ultimate'. I hope you know the difference. No matter, I am willing to make an exception for you. Perhaps this 'cam site' will be the ‘ultimate.’

I wait with bated breath ( not 'baited,' that is for fishing),

Clarance Bean AKA s*****

End of Correspondance.

RESPONSE #2

To: Clarence Bean
From: Mary Stewart

Hey I'm Mary and I dig your post. I will send you a pic a little later I don't have one on this computer at the moment. Get back to me on marysparanoidagain**@gmail.com because I've been missing mail from people that I know on this one lately, something about getting mixed up in the junk folder. Cya.

To: Mary Stewart
From: Clarence Bean

Dear Mary Stewart,

Thank you so much for your reply. My initial reaction was that of wonderment- could you be related to Martha? While I respect Martha, I would have to politely decline correspondence. Martha is white, and, as you know, I am looking for an olive-skinned lady.

It was your command of foreign languages that clued me in, however, that you might be of a dusky hue. Of what cultural persuasion is the word "Cya"?

I would like to "Cya" ;)

At any rate, I do hope you own a Segway- perhaps we can go riding soon.

Scoliosis? No matter, I am willing to make an exception for you. Possibly, we can put an elevated pump on just one foot. Like Cinderella, only ethnic.

Don't worry, I am paranoid, too.

Sincerely,

Clarence Bean, AKA s******

PS I sincerely hope you are a live person and not a tablet that counteracts erectile dysfunction. I would be so disappointed. I look forward to your 'pic'.

To: Clarence Bean
From: Mary Saunders

Hello, thanks for getting back to me. Do you have pics? I'd love if we
could chat a bit before meeting up because you never know about people
from the net these days! You should check out my pic on
amateurdatingonline.com it is pretty hot. My profile is hottbod2. I
would send it through here but I don't have any pics of me on this
computer yet. Anyways, let me know what you think and when a good time
to chat is for you. Later babe! Xo

To: Mary Saunders
From: Clarence Bean

Never know about people from the net these days INDEED.

OK Mary "SAUNDERS"- don't think I didn't notice your clever ploy to unobtrusively change your last name. I'll bet you ARE related to Martha Stewart, and are merely seeking to conceal it.

You are making me paranoid, Mary.

You probably don't even speak Cya.

Still, though, I'm exited that you have a hotbod2, as described in your email. Are your legs the same length?

Hoping to hear from you,

Clarence Bean.


End of Correspondence

The stupidest thing about all this is while I know these people (sic) aren’t reading a word I say, I’m beginning to look forward to their emails, which sort of smacks of pathetic. OK, perhaps not ‘sort of’. I think I need a new approach- I'm beginning to sound like that guy, you know, what's-his-name who writes all the letters.

And so, a little reflection.

Truth be told, humans aren’t really all that different from the rest of the animal kingdom. I think most men would be happy to connect their testicles to a sprinkler head and let the semen rip, hoping to impregnate something, anything. Women are left holding umbrellas, so to speak. The biggest complaint from the ladies’ ads I read on craigslist is a proliferance of penis photos, something I’m not so sure I want to see myself. But, in the nature of scientific inquiry, let’s give it a shot. This is a learning process, and how could I not give equal time to all genders if I'm claiming due scientific process? I’m going to have to make this next one a little more believable, though.

COMING SOON: Women Seeking Men.

On Traveleling Zoos 5: Serval Cats and Quitting

About a month into my employment, I had the big ‘To Do’- I was going out on a show with the actual boss. And, as the actual boss was going, we were taking the performing animals, ones she had trained, that only she handled. We were going to a community center in some generic northern suburb.

Her vehicle, the official one, was a converted ambulance. It was painted lavender and stenciled on the side, not all that delicately, were the words ‘Samantha’s Amazing Animals’. For every other show I had done, we had taken a brokedown* white van, but here I was, with the boss in the company vehicle, one that had undoubtedly seen the last dying breaths of many good citizens. I did not feel good about this.

Here’s the thing about training animals; you can’t train them. You can only encourage them to do things that they normally do anyway. You can get the horse to ‘count’, but he can’t perform arithmetic. You can get the cat to walk like a fashion model down a runway, but she’s doing it for the treat, not the prestige. Yes, a piano-playing duck sounds pretty cool, but it’s not so impressive when you find out it’s just picking up duck food that you threw on the keyboard with its beak, striking notes in a haphazard manner. There is no composition. Still, we all like to anthropomorphize animals-especially city people-as it makes them seem a little less alien to us, a little more toward our realm of consiousness and a little further away from their animal natures, which seem quite brutal to us. Take the raccoons, for instance.

They played basketball. That is to say, they would take the little orange Nerf© balls that Samantha gave them and drop them through little toy hoops. These same creatures, in the pen in her backyard, would snarl and hiss every time you went by. We were all under strict instructions to never go near them, and never give them opportunity to get close enough to the cage for them to take a bite out of us. Still, they looked cute on stage, and didn’t give any indication of their true natures while performing.

Not so with the Serval cat.

I should give you an idea of what a Serval is before I get into the actual performance. It is the smallest of the ‘Big Cats’, a loose category used to describe predatory felines large enough to take down substantial prey, something bigger than rodents or birds. According to wikipedia-a dubious source, to be sure- it can weigh up to 40 pounds. This doesn’t sound that huge at first; a profoundly obese housecat can get up to 20, so in these terms, it’s just two Garfields. The Serval, however, is built along different lines. It has extraordinarily long, thin legs and, according to www.serval-cats.com, is often confused with Cheetahs.

Cheetahs.

These things are tall and lean. Yes, it does hunt rodents, hares, etc., but it also hunts antelopes. Small ones, to be sure, but antelopes nonetheless. Antelopes are among the worlds fastest terrestrial mammals, and this thing can take one down. After one show, Cyndi, the only other one allowed to handle it, was dragging it upstairs on a leash, and the Serval was being, to put it mildly, reluctant, and was voicing its displeasure. Servals don’t meow. They growl, in that National-Geographic sound-bit sort of way, the one that makes nature documentaries interesting from the once-removed perspective of television. Live action is different. To be succinct, they induce bowel twisting primal terror when the thing is within striking range without a moat and a fence between you and it. At one point on the way up the stairs, when Cyndi was bringing it back up to its home after a show, it was writhing and leaping around in such a way that I swear all four of its paws (and I hate to use the word paws, as it conjures up images of cute kitty-ness) were off the ground, and I swear that Cyndi used this opportunity to yank the leash in such a way that it was yanked in flight up the last remaining section of the stairwell. My respect for her was growing immeasurably, as well as a little fear. If she could kick a Serval’s ass, she could certainly kick mine. I sensed a glass ceiling in the company, but that’s not important now. Back to the show.

For the performance, Samantha had set up two collapsible tables, the kind found in elementary school cafeterias, about six feet apart, and had set up a ring for the cat to jump through. Pellet food and doggie treats are fine enough for ducks and raccoons, but the Serval was having none of that. This was a cat, after all. Human vegetarians like to get their digs in on the meat eating portion of the population by calling us ‘carnivores’, but it isn’t true, really- we are designed by nature to extract protein from a number of different sources, and only a small percentage of that should be meat, much less than is incorporated in the typical American diet. ‘Should’ is a strong term as well- countless people have shown that we can get by fine without it.

Cats, however, are a different story. They are real carnivores. Anybody who has a cat will back me up- how many times has your cat turned her nose up at the dried Purina cat chow in her bowl? How much does she love you when you give her that gross slab of gelatinous processed meat out of the can?**

The point is, cats are real carnivores. They eat meat exclusively, and it being so high in protein and saturated fats, it affords them most of the day to sleep it off. They are all cute when they are purring and snoozing in the sun, but when duty calls, they are mean little predatory machines. The Serval cat was technically a pet, but Purina cat chow was not going to do it for him. Samantha solved this by using chunks of raw steak to entice him to jump from table to table, and through the hoop. When she brought the meat out of the carton during the show, the Serval’s response was immediate, raw and Pavlov. It instantly started drooling uncontrollably, great swathes of saliva dripping off its chin like regurgitated chocolate milk. I didn’t think it was possible for an animal to bug out its eyes like a bullfrog and narrow its eyelids to hunter’s focus at the same time, but it did. It was alarming to see this, and to see how clearly it was beyond this animal’s power to control or moderate its response. I think Samantha had to wipe up the drool puddles with a rag during the show. I’m sure, actually. I clearly remember her handing me the drool rag and making me do it.

Memory is a fickle thing. Reason tells me Samantha would never light a hoop on fire and have the cat jump through it, given that it had a coat of very flammable fur, but I think because I was involved in all the theatre productions in high school and therefore a ‘drama’ geek, I prefer to remember it that way. I’m fairly certain it didn’t happen, but it seems more in line to think about it as such. What I am sure of is that at some point I either had to move a stationary hoop or hold one in one place. Regardless, I was up close and personal, ‘on stage’ as it were. The cat was drooling everywhere now, in wild anticipation for raw meat. but was, for whatever reason- be it singing its fur or retaining it’s dignity- reluctant to jump through the hoop. All I know was that the thing looked at me, mad with craving for flesh, but unwilling to perform for it.

Supposedly, only Dr. Doolittle can talk to the animals, but I watched the gears turn in this animals head, and I clearly understood what it was thinking when it came to the realization that there was a ready source of soft, dark meat that it wouldn’t have to sacrifice its pride for. No hoops, no prepared little chunks of cold-cow cuts, this hunk of walking gourmet was closer, warmer, and, given the look I probably had on my face, easy pickins’. Plus, everyone likes Indian food.

I’m sure gave every indication that I was lock-dead easy prey, but pre-programming and Samantha’s constant cajoling won over. It jumped through the hoop, Samantha gave it its treat, and I excused myself to go throw up in the bathroom.

This same cat finally sealed the decision to quit. We, as employees, had to go up to the ‘office’, Samantha’s third floor apartment, to sign out for our paycheck. I guess I’d done a couple of shows, and they were getting used to seeing me around, because Cyndi told me to just go up by my lonesome and sign myself out. The creaky wooden chair, the one I’d imagined Dee sitting in when I’d made my initial call, was behind an old wooden desk, the hub of business transactions for SAA. The baby squirrel was skittering around the place, the snakes were slithering in the computer room, and the Serval was staring at me from the kitchen, entirely off the leash.

‘Oh’, I thought to myself, ‘There’s the funky little squirrel doing his thing, here’s the paperwork I need, the snakes are milling around the computer room, and there’s the Serval cat, stalking me. Everything seems in order. I think. Should I be worried about something? I feel like I’m missing something.’

There is something to be said for denial. Had I freaked out entirely, the Serval would’ve knocked my ass senseless like a big stuffed catnip toy. The image of the cat registered in my mind as I reluctantly pressed the rewind on my brain, but I did have the sense to turn my head around slowly. Yes, I had done shows with the thing, yes, I was aware that Samantha let it run free in the apartment, but I trusted these people enough to figure that, I don’t know, it would be in a special room or asleep or something. I was alone, it didn’t recognize my smell*** , and the thing loved raw meat. I was on his turf.

Underwear isn’t all that expensive, but I wasn’t getting paid enough to write it off as a business expense, given the rate I was soiling them in this job, and when the thing let slip a throaty, guttural growl and hunkered down into pouncing position, claws extruded and dug into kitchen tile for purchase in its final killing leap, I decided it might be prudent to try other employment, should I live through this one.

When I got home that evening, a letter awaited. I had applied to a fast-track teaching certification program some weeks before, and I found I had been accepted, training starting next month, we hope to hear from you soon, etc. I made the decision right then and there to try my luck with human animals, a safer bet. At least I spoke some of their language, if not entirely fluently. Yes, parents can sue, yes, the salary is sorta dismal, but being alive to bitch about it seemed worth it. Time to become a schoolteacher.
................................................
*And I mean ‘brokedown’ as in “brokedown drag-queen”- it had that effect, and I couldn’t tell you why.

**The reasons for this are biological. Intestine length has much to do with diet. Cows and other ruminants have complex digestive systems. Four metabolic chambers, a sequential chemical sequence that requires back-and-forth regurgitation with precise timing, a symbiotic relationship with specific strains of bacteria, and, most significantly, an intensely long and coiled alimentary track- all of this is needed to digest something as simple as grass. A carnivore has a different layout- look at a lion sometime. Within the ribcage and torso, it is thicker, as it contains HUGE lungs (it has to exert a lot of effort to catch its prey, and oxygen is needed in spades to do this) as well as its normal set of organs, liver, heart, spleen, etc. What it doesn’t have is a big huge belly- cats are slim around what for lack of a better term we can call a waist. We, as fancy monkeys, are somewhere in between. We don’t carry enormous fat reserves of fuel, unless we happen to be American, and we don’t have the same type of complicated alimentary track as ruminants, as we don’t need to digest grass all the time. We do get beer bellies, however, and in part that is because we need to have a lengthy enough tract to digest whatever comes our way, but short enough to be able to catch, acquire, etc, whatever is available, including beer. We are, in short, omnivores. Sorry for all that, but I am a biology teacher, after all.

***Or perhaps it did. Chicken Tikka Masala, I imagine.

On Traveling Zoos Part 4: Squirrels and Eddie Munster

I remember the first time I was allowed into the upper eschelons of the zoo. The building was a two-flat with a basement, and the top floor was where Samantha The Boss lived, along with her favorite pets. Well, some of her favorite pets. The other half were the sick and problem pets, ones that needed special attention because they were either ill, and needed special care, or were too ornery to be given reign in the lower eschelons. One of these was the baby squirrel Samantha had rescued.

Before I introduce the squirrel, I need to explain my relationship to squirrels in general. I am an avid cyclist, and probably due to sheer odds, I’ve nearly hit squirrels several times with my bike. It’s usually (a combination of) neither of us paying enough attention to where we were going, but despite the close call, it was unintentional on both our parts. They usually bounce off my spokes, shake their little skulls into sensibility, and scurry away. It is disconcerting to have one of these creatures bolt across the room and deliberately clamber up your leg, your back, your shoulder and nuzzle right up to your ear and start chattering and chewing on your earing, but that was precisely what happened about two minutes into me being up there. The baby squirrel clearly felt comfortable on my shoulder, and liked the taste of my earwax, because she decided that she would make camp there, even as I strolled around the apartment.

It was my second day here, only six weeks in the Big City, and already I was wearing a squirrel like a foppish pirate. Things were looking up.

In addition to wearing a squirrel pirate-style, I began to feel even more surreal staring at her ‘celebrity’ photographs, the same type you would see in any restaurant hoping to attract the big clientele- the cook or the owner beaming proudly next to Cher, with some sort of personalized autograph and quip, like ‘Thanks for the best ribs in Key West!’ Hers were of celebrities of the pseudo-creepy sort. Robert Engler, the guy who played Freddy in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies was up there more than once, and I got the feeling they probably called each other every so often, sent Christmas cards, inquired about each others kids, etc. In itself, discombobulating, but the one with Eddie Munster was the one that put me definitively off-kilter. It wasn’t so much that it was him, but that it was an adult him. And it wasn’t even so much that it was an adult him, but that it was an adult him in full Eddie Munster regalia- widow’s peak, faux-dracula waiscoat and shorts, the whole bit. Still, I could imagine that maybe he was coming from a comic-book convention that day, trying to milk a few bucks from his former career. What was most disconcerting was that he was clearly tanked, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, in a kind of raucous, falling-over-at-the-bar cameo shot, the kind of photo you only get of your friends when you go out late on a Friday night. My God. I had to accept the fact that my boss goes out and gets kershnonkered with adult cast members of The Munsters.

……………………………………

On Traveleling Zoos 3: Pythons in Satchels

My first real show was a birthday party held at a community center out in the suburbs, for children ages 1-1/2 to 4. I say this as if I had some sort of ‘practice’ show- no such luck. This was two days after meeting the animals. For the show, we brought an assortment of reptiles, including some of the smaller constrictors, a three-foot iguana, both alligators, and a turtle or two. The Asian girl-who’s name I don’t remember, but whom we will call Cyndi, as she needs a name at this point- was going to introduce all of the animals. My job was to take it after the introduction and walk along the semicircle of giddy preschoolers, and let them pet the animals. Did you get that? LET THEM PET THE ANIMALS. Me. Holding them. I guess iguanas, like most reptiles, are fairly predictable, but still, I can’t say I knew that then. I only knew the thing had inch long claws, and preschoolers are pretty soft. I guess it went OK for the first few times. I was then supposed to put away the animals while Cyndi introduced the next one. It was all going off with out a hitch, and Cyndi must have felt safe enough to start to introduce some of the more unpredictable ones, the ones I wasn’t allowed to handle yet. For this part, she would do all the work: introduction, petting, putting them away.

All I had to do was sit with all the rest of the animals and make sure they didn’t get into any mischief while the rest of the show went on.

You need to know first that snakes are kept in old potato sacks, the sort that hobo’s of the Mark Twain era were reputed to wear. The darkness and the restriction of space are supposed to subdue them. They have a pull tie at the top, like a satchel or a hoodie sweatshirt. I was supposed to knot it closed, but at this point in my life I hadn’t owned a satchel yet, nor a snake, and there really isn’t a need to tighten your hoodie so that your face is hermetically sealed from the rest of the world, except during really cold winters. I just didn’t think about it. I also just thought the weave of the cloth was pretty stiff, and that was why it was sitting rather upright. I did notice that I hadn’t pulled the tie quite tight enough and I grabbed the top of the sack at precisely the same moment that Cyndi cued me to grab the alligator from her, mid-show.

“And so, kids, we are really exited to show you all some other animals.” Said she, as I failed to show up.

The snake in the sack had, unbeknownst to me, apparently seen the Light at the End of the Satchel, and started to eek its way out. It had nearly reached the top when I grabbed the satchel, expecting to feel only slack burlap fabric. It surprised both of us, I think. He was smelling freedom, I job security, and it was alarming to have this yanked so cleanly from underneath the both of us, a result of a simple misunderstanding. I found myself gripping him just below his head in a strangle-hold. He found himself immobilized by an unseen deity, shaming him for wanting independence. I, not expecting to feel a rod of organic snake underneath the burlap, barely managing to not shriek like a demure-looking Asian girl and wet my pants. He choose to freak out entirely, wriggling and convulsing, defiant in the face of a vindictive God.

“Are you guys exited to see the Iguanas?!?” Cyndi was saying.

“YES!”, they squealed.

“You sure can, as soon as we move the alligator off stage.”

She cleared her throat, again.

His head wasn’t quite out of the bag, so the audience couldn’t see it. Nor could Cyndi. The snake was wriggling like a man confronted with immediate existential uncertainty, made all the more fluid by his extra burlap skin. I must have telepathically communicated the gravity of the situation, because she started to box the ‘gator, while the snake I and excused ourselves to the bathroom, satchel and all. I eventually had to lay the bag on the floor, release the anxious snake from my grip, and quickly pull the bag from the back around his head, before he had time to figure out that this was his last bid for freedom. I felt anxious for myself and a little sad for him. I was having waking nightmares about the fabled snake from the New York City sewers coming through the drainpipe up the unsuspecting businessman’s ass, should he escape down the toilet, and it being traced back to me. I also felt a little shame for not letting him realize his dreams, should this be what he aspired to do. It didn’t happen- but it could have.

On Traveleling Zoos 2: Landing a Job and a Binturong

When I did call the zoo, a woman with the deepest, huskiest voice I have ever heard picked up. Perhaps it was some measure of trepidation on my part, a measure of anxiety that I felt about finding a job in an enormous metropolis, but I immediately conjured up some fever-driven animation footage of an enormous 1940’s era cartoon Boss Lady, sitting behind an enormous cartoon desk. In my mind, she had a cross-hatched 5-0’clock shadow, beady solid black pupils, a gnawed cigar stub sticking out from between her rear molars, and when she looked at me, little menacing emissions of dashed lines shot from her eyeballs towards my diminutive little self on the killing floor. As her gaze bored into me, I would shrink, the soundtrack a reductive “EEEeeewwwww”, until I collapsed upon myself, diminished to the size of a Smurf doll. She would shake her head in disgust, reach for the Big Red Lever next to her desk, and drop me through the trapdoor that I had so unfortunately chosen to stand upon. I would hover for second, scrambling for purchase in mid-air, before I disappeared with a freehand scribed “whoosh!” and a cloud of beige dust in the shape of microwaved marshmallow.

I was only a fraction right. As it turns out, she was stick-thin, but she did smoke Marlboro Reds at an alarming rate, hence the gravelly voice. In a rehearsed but friendly diatribe, she told me I would get a quick tour of the premises and an introduction to all the animals, and then would be put immediately on a show, basically to see if I could deal with it. She turned me over to a demure looking Asian girl for the tour*.

When I was introduced to her, she was wearing a cute but modest black tank top, and a tasteful Indian-print skirt, just above her knees, She looked nice and considerate, and I felt safe under her mentorship.

“What you need to do is,” as she stradled the larger of the two alligators to the ground- the six footer, not the four footer-and wrestled it to the ground,“ you have to clamp its jaws shut with one hand and duct-tape his jaws together with the other.”

It sounds trite, but I was young, and I realized that first impressions can sometimes be deceiving. Just watching her was an education in itself. I’d tell you more about how she handled the animals, but, in fact, she didn’t. She made me do it. A brief play-by–play:

THE BINTURONG


It’s probably safe to say that most people have no idea what a Binturong is. I certainly didn’t when I met it . It was housed in a converted walk-in closet, with an old dead tree branch serving as its jungle gym. This was a big animal.

“Go on. Go in and get it.” She said.

The Binturong, also known as the Asian Bearcat, is a peculiar animal. It looks something like a cat, with a splay of whiskers on either side of its nose, but its ears and eyes, as well as body language, are more like those of a bear, hence the name. Its incongruous feature is its long prehensile tail. It accounts for up to half the length of its body, and can grasp branches, limbs, whatever, with sufficient strength to support its entire body weight, not unlike a brachiating primate. In fact, it is an arboreal species, spending almost all of its life off the ground. It grows to over 3 feet in length-without the tail- and can cut off the circulation in your fingers- with the tail- although it has too gentle a disposition to do this maliciously. I didn’t, however, actually know this at the time.

“Don’t be shy.” Said Cyndi.

“You need to be comfortable with the animals if you want the job.” She explained.

I’m looking at this Bearcat, hanging out in its tree, wondering how on God’s good earth I’m going to ‘get’ it. It turns out, it wasn’t a problem. He was a curious fellow, and slid down his from his perch to sniff my toes.

“He said WHAT!?!” exclaimed the Asian girl, muffled, from around the corner.

“I KNOW, girl I couldn’t believe it…” Said Darlene, through puffs of Marlboro smoke, her voice getting softer as they plodded downstairs.

They were leaving me.

Alone.

With this animal.

Fuck.


He gingerly probed at my ankle, grabbed my trouser leg, and with sloth-like patience, began its ascent up this new, pliable tree. It must been unique to have the bark on these new branches give a little, and move to suit your trajectory. He made his way up to the top and settled on my head, much like the raccoon hats Daniel Boone wore, except that, as an accessory, he was far too big. I had to support him across my shoulders, while his prehensile tail wrapped beneath my armpit and around my bicept, leaving me to wonder how I was going to avoid dropping him while my fingers were slowly turning blue** . The other assistants were elsewhere in the complex, and so I walked out of its cage, binturong aloft, down the stairs to find someone who could explain to me how to remove him.
........................................................................

*Before I go any further, before I even introduce the demure-looking Asian girl, I need to claim a caveat. What transpires beyond this paragraph should be taken with the understanding that I was in a mild state of shock. I can’t explain how jarring it is to be thrown into the arena of a working traveling zoo point blank, with no experience whatsoever. In the remainder of this histoire, I may color this as if that the people who ran this business had no inkling or idea about what they were doing, and that is patently false- you can actually take a three-flat apartment on the west side and make it a working zoological park where the vast majority of the animals are happy, healthy, and well cared for. The immediate shock of seeing that this actually exists initially offended my sense of equilibrium, if only because I didn’t think any of this was even possible. But, with hindsight, it clearly is possible, and what seemed at first glance like chaos actually turned out to be a sensible tolerance for a little entropy in the name of flexibility. If you saw the place, or take any of what I say at face value, you might get the impression that things were crazy, and you would be right. But it was also a necessary craziness; a sort of acquiescence that any parent realizes is needed to get their charges to college/mating age/capable aviator, etc. Just know that these recollections occurred when I was still in the upstanding moral idealist phase that only the young and never-employed can afford to entertain.

**On a side note, 9-foot Burmese Pythons have a similar effect on your fingers.

On Traveling Zoos Part 1: Moving to Chicago

Folks, this is a long one, to be sure, so let's do this in installments.

Dinner conversation can be difficult. Whether it’s with an old spouse, a new girlfriend, or moving to a new town, we seem to have certain standards for introductory conversation, the most famous being “So, what do you do?” I’d like to offer another alternative, one that simply requires changing the tense. Go with “What have you done?”- It’s astounding what people have done with their past lives. The history teacher I worked with used to travel with a Serbian dance troupe, an old roommate, now a PhD candidate in public health, used to be a tour guide at Kellogg’s cereal factory, the computer programmer, a friend of a friend, toured bars across America organizing put-put golf competitions for Bass Ale. Now that I’m a public school teacher, my students are always a little shocked that I was a musician in a former life. But, well, a lot of people are musicians, depending on how loosely you define the term. It’s really not that uncommon. I don’t like to brag, but I think I can safely say that most people have never been an animal handler at an urban traveling zoo.

I have to offer first that I never expected to do this. I never had any real inclination to touch animals when I was a kid-I inherited my Indian father’s cobra paranoia, applied irrationally to the harmless garter snakes that inhabit most of Michigan. Nor did I ever voluntarily collect bugs. I love biology, but from a safe distance. I am the armchair quarterback of naturalists. Actually touching animals started when I moved to, oddly enough, Chicago.
For a suburban kid, moving to a major metropolitan area can be difficult. I used to date an Indian woman from Bombay, now in nationalistic lingo “Mumbai”, and when I moved to Chicago, I stayed with her while I searched for a job, a place to live, etc. Predictably, after about a month of sharing her apartment, her food, her leisure time, private time and sleeping time, she got a little distraught. I’m half-Indian, but the fact of the matter is I grew up in white suburban Detroit, raised on Sesame Street and Spaghettios. Still, given our common ancestry, I thought it prudent to use an argument forwarded by Salmaan Rushdie on an NPR interview, hoping our cultural overlap to a fellow desi might hold some sway. The thrust of his argument was that it easier to move from one metropolitan center anywhere in the world to another than it is for a small town kid to move to the City, as-even though moving from Bombay to Chicago is disconcerting- one still has the ability and knowledge to negotiate metropolitan living- public transport, crime, sprawl, neighborhoods and affiliations, all that stuff. It was a valid observation on Mr. Rushdie’s part, but a total bullshit excuse on mine to use it as a reason why I hadn’t found a job, and it had the convenient logical extension that of course I couldn’t move out of her place until I had a job to pay for one of my own, and how could I do that when I needed time to adjust, blah blah blah. What charlatan I was. Or, maybe just a little overwhelmed- I was young, the city was huge, I was a little scared, to be honest. If Judge Judy were here, though, she’d just call me an asshole.

I had come to Chicago with the intention of working in education of some form. I had been a camp counselor in Michigan and had taught test-prep classes for the SAT and ACT, and found that they, as jobs, were much more tolerable than pouring coffee at the Rotary Club luncheon every Wednesday for years on end. I was determined to find something at least related to education, and was extremely diffident about taking a food service job. I flipped through the Reader classifieds every day, until one particular ad caught my eye. The ad read something like this:

WORK FOR A TRAVELING ZOO. Assistant animal handlers needed for traveling animal show. We tour schools, after-school programs, private parties, etc. No experience necessary, teachers and educators encouraged to apply.

I had been in Chicago for over a month at this point, and I was sort of desperate for a job. My parents had shelled out a lot of money for a swanky biology degree at the U of M, and I had repaid their forethought and kindness by deciding I was going to be a rock and roll star. Also predictably, this didn’t work out as well as I’d hoped, and I found myself slumming around Ann Arbor after the band broke up. The problem with hanging around the ole college campus is that, while you have a “prestigious” degree, so does the guy at the tollbooth, the gas station attendant, and most of the meter maids. The waitress at the Fleetwood Diner had double masters’ degrees in anthropology and comparative literature, but could only pay her rent slinging French fries and corned-beef hash to drunken bar-flies at 3 o’clock in the morning. I tried a few lab rat jobs, but they invariably paid less than waiting tables, plus they had the additional detractor of working with neurotoxins, something you couldn’t be drunk to do, as opposed to bartending at weddings. These jobs had early hours, low pay, and of course were, as a rule, stone-cold boring. One job, working for OSHA-that being the Occupational Safety and Health Administration- required me to dry and weigh soil samples from a landfill for PCB’s. It sounds sort of nifty and important, but it really amounted to drying and weighing soil samples all day. The only exciting thing I remember in my three-month tenure was when the janitor watched my colleague taking the samples out of the dessicator- this being scientific nomenclature for ‘dryer.’ It was basically an expensive and rather ineffective oven.

“So, you done cooking your dirt?” she asked.

“It’s SOIL.” He was flipping out a bit.

“Looks like dirt to me”, She said. It looked like dirt.

“DIRT is what is found underneath fingernails. It’s soil, dammit, SOIL. Don’t you get it?!?”


Scientists can be a little uptight. Water is also wet.

It was winter when I started the job, and I got to the lab just before the sun rose. The lab had no windows, and I didn’t finish until just after the sun set. I used to eat lunch in my car, if only for the opportunity to photosynthesize for 45 minutes. The job paid $8.50 an hour, a dollar more than any of the lab rat jobs I held previously. The Wendy’s across the street was hiring night-shift managers at $9.00. I felt it was time to move to a better job market. Like the rest of Michigan, I moved to Chicago.

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On Traveling Zoos- A prequel

I'm trying to finish up a long ole' post, detailing my time spent with a traveling zoo, also a prequel to teaching in the classroom. As mentioned before, I've learned many blogs are considerably more tricked out than mine, so was trying to sink a video here, eye candy, you know? Couldn't manage to use a youtube clip, I'm sort of toopid that way. The clip was of cats- in a band. Playing Electric Avenue by Eddie Grant. Ahem.

So i'll put up the videos up on the video bar. Same thing, really.

This is the actual lady who runs the traveling zoo. She wasn't doing anything with cats when I worked there, but it is her main gig these days. I suppose if you are going to become a 'cat-lady', you might as well put them to work for you. Cats rarely earn their keep, unlike dogs, although they do crap reliably in the same spot, so I'm still more endeared toward them for this.

The entirety of 'on traveling zoos' soon to come- I'll have to finish it soon, now that I've posted this. Plus, I still don't have a wallet.

Next Blog

I'm sorta stuck in Chicago. Left my wallet in the UP, and am sitting around, waiting for it to return....and so I'm going to save you all a little time. As I can't go anywhere for lack of cash, I've spent the better part of a hour pressing the 'NEXT BLOG' button. My advice? Don't. Here are the stats:

76% of blogs are written in a language other than English. I'm sure they are all great, but it gives me a headache trying to recall all 476 french words I once knew and trying to piece together some sense out of them.

58% of blogs are photo albums. I know, 'a picture says 1,000 words' or some such whatever, but mostly, all the words are in French, for all the context given.

of those 58%
42% are family/baby photo albums. Of course this is fine and good. One must keep the family informed, after all. I just have issue with he ones written for anyone other than family, the ones that assume that a sorry- ass like myself (read: someone who is spending his Saturday clicking "NEXT BLOG" for an hour) would still be desperate enough to willingly sift through 177 identical baby pictures from a stranger. I can barely feign interest in babies related to me.

14% of blogs are spousal dedications. Great. remind me I'm single again.

4% of blogs have automatic music cued up, or some pop-up questionnaire. They are both alarming, more so the questionnaire, as it is usually in French, and I never know what I am agreeing to.

28% of blogs/bloggers have figured out how to trick out their site much more than I have. How do I get the cool template? Am I that computer unsavy? How do you spell "unsavy" anyway?

89% of blogs are pretty f**king boring. I'm sure mine falls into this category. I'm beginning to worry that I am becoming socially retarded. Worse yet, that I always have been.

Enough ranting. Maybe I'll go out and get....well, some fresh air, for all I can afford at the moment.

On Science Fair: Part 1

I've had the stupid video bar set to kids doing science fair- not that anyone watches the videos*- but still, I've been meaning to finish up a little doodle-whacky about science fairs for a while. Ain't finished it yet. Ain't edited it yet. But here's a peek at the start, anyway.
*Or reads the blog, for that matter


On Science Fairs

I nearly got my ass kicked thoroughly my junior year of high school. I blame the science fair.

I can’t logically blame the fair- I just don’t like to admit that I may have been being a dick, that my potential thrashing was deserved.

The kid, Ralph Perkins (a pseudonym, of course- I don’t want him to come find me and make up for lost time) wasn’t really an asshole, just a big, dumb jock. He was, however, the crony of Randy Wayne Clyde (his real name, only because I’m certain he’s probably in jail right now) who was an asshole, and considerably more intelligent than Ralph, to the tune of having him do all the dirty work when it came to threatening skinny little punk-ass-goth-lings like myself. I had clashed with the both of them over the years. Rich was scary, a freckle-faced, handsome bully, feared by the geeky masses and one you didn’t want to cross. Ralph, though, was an easy target, and since he had never actually struck me over the course of 6 years or so, I felt reasonably confident that I could mock him. He probably deserved it anyway for throwing his muscle around like he did- while he never hit a geekling, he was notorious for hip-checking us in gym class-, but it’s hard to place blame on someone for using their only feasible attribute to further their own interests.

It was the drawing that did it. The original drawing was destroyed just moments after its inception, but I did reproduce it. Scroll down to the bottom of the blog and you can find a replica I spent far too much time on (it is summer vacation after all). It was a take-off on the old science fair standard, that of the project where you wire up potatoes with copper and zinc nodules in order to power a light bulb. Probably I shouldn’t have passed it around the room, particularly as we were all seated in a circle, the one thing that would guarantee that everyone saw it. And by everyone, I mean Ralph Perkins.

He shot me a glare of complete and threatening malice, and promised that come three o’clock, when everyone had to cross the bridge over the highway on the way towards the schools buses, I would be pulverized. It was a bottleneck, this bridge,the only feasible route to get to the buses and consequently home. For this reason it was unofficially designated as The Best Spot for after-school boxing sessions. You couldn’t avoid your tormentor unless you wanted to walk home, and I lived on the opposite side of town, way too far to go by foot. It had the additional benefit that when it was crowded, teachers and administrators couldn’t get in to stop the fight.

I elected to walk home that day.

All of this I tell to you only because I still think the drawing was sort of clever, and it deserves a second airing. I now need to explain my own complicated relationship with the science fair. It starts out sketchily and never really escapes this orbit.

I remember participating in the science fair only twice, and only remember ever assembling 3 projects. The first was when I was still in the phase where I really didn’t have a grasp on reality quite yet- probably about first grade, if the kids I now teach are any indication. If I recall correctly, I had tied together a motley assortment of objects that I considered ‘scientific’- a battery, a fork, a flashlight, a paper airplane- all with my spare shoelaces. I must have known how to tie knots- let’s update that to elementary school 2.0. I’m not sure what I expected to happen, but my mother was encouraging, as mothers are apt to be, rather blindly when their own kids are involved. My brother- ever the critic- did point out that what was actually going to happen was fucking nothing, and despite my mother trying to censor his disparaging comments about my first foray into the greater sphere of Science, I did have to conceded he was right. I didn’t enter it in the fair.

By fourth grade, science fair was required, and I decided to do my project on airplanes.

I was obsessed with airplanes as a kid, in the same way that other kids are obsessed with dinosaurs. I could identify the make and model of commercial airliners at 5,000 ft., by noting the placement of the engines and the wingspan. I had memorized all the tail logos of all the major carriers- Pan Am, British Airways, Air France, Air India- and I obsessively drew them, as well as all the major models- DC 10’s, 747’s 737’s. I even submitted one of my airplane drawings to Highlights for Children, to be printed in the last few pages, the section where they published drawings of kids from all around the world. I renewed a one-year subscription to the magazine, waiting to see my masterpiece acknowledged. They never did publish it, a pattern that persists today, and goes a long way in explaining why I have a blog.

Anywhoosle (a word which might also explain my lack of publication), I decided I would play on my strengths for this project, and it seemed natural and scientific to catalog all the tail logos of the major airlines first.

“What are you doing?” asked my brother.

“Working on my science fair project”, I replied.

“What’s it supposed to be about?” He inquired.

“Airplanes!” I retorted, clearly enthused.

“You, know”, he proceeded to point out “ the logos of the companies don’t really have much to do with science.”

“You leave him alone!” shrieked my mother from the kitchen. She was a social worker.

Again, I had to- with mounting distress- admit he had a point. There really wasn’t anything scientific about being able to identify the likely ethnic demographic of the patrons of the airline. I switched my project to “How Airplanes Fly.” I think I got a “B”.

My third and final project, in the 7th Grade, was my first foray into ethics violations and falsified data. I had chosen to study the effect of pollution on plants, and had convinced my parents to shell out loot for two fancy houseplants and their car keys, with the stipulation that I would only start the car in the garage, with the door open. The plan was to run car exhaust into a jar, trapping the ‘pollutants’ inside and upending the jar over one of the plants. The other would also be in a jar, but with clean air. I understood the notion of a 'controlled experiment.'

I didn't understand the notion of 'doing the actual work'. Through procrastination and a tragic miscalculation as to how long it would take a plant to wither and die (probably never, realistically) I found myself with two completely healthy rhododendrons two days before my project was due. I had not once exposed either of them to car exhaust, and found myself frantically holding one of them in front of the exhaust pipe, choking on the fumes, for minutes at a time. Predictably, it didn’t do anything. The plant looked as healthy as when we bought it, and I started to seriously panic. Fortunately, we were a suburban family, necessarily over-concerned with our lawn, and the solution presented itself to me right there in that very garage.

You’d think the judges would have recognized the smell of weed killer coming off in waves from the dead plant. I could smell it clearly, there in the library where the Fair was held, but perhaps that was just the odor of guilt. In fact, I ended up getting an Honorable Mention. These things are always skewed, and I now know why.

Some two decades later, I find myself in charge of the Elementary Science Fair at the private school. I’m entrusted with organizing all the projects, making a floor plan, recruiting judges, and devising a fair and equitable judging system. I can only say, I did my level best. If there is anything or anyone to blame, I can only point to Karma. I suppose I deserved it, but let it be known, I have now paid in full for my transgressions. This is my receipt, dammit.

On Hearing

It isn’t only Kyra Phillips of CNN and George Dubya that have to worry about off-camera mics. For those of you who don’t follow the bland repetitions of the daily media broadcast-and cheers to you- Kyra, a CNN news-anchor, left her mic on while taking a pee, and chatted up the details of her brother’s marriage with a co-worker (which betrays a facet of her personality, that she is a ‘sit-n-speak’ sort of restroom patron). This was about a week ago (ok, a year and a half ago. These are re-runs). After hearing this, and given my situation, I knew it was only a matter of time before it happened to me. I just didn’t figure it would be a week later.
The Magnet School has a sizable deaf population, or at least I assume it does. The first day at work, the beginning of the school year where we don’t have to deal with children yet, the whole faculty met in the auditorium. It was a sort of ‘meet-n-greet’ the administration, at least for those of us new to the school. Seeing as no students were present, I figured they must have a big enough deaf population to need an extensive ASL speaking staff, enough to warrant an interpreter signing for the duration of the speeches. There were many ASL interpreters, and they had to switch a lot- I guess your hands get tired. This brings up some terminology questions- Do you ‘speak’ ASL? Is ‘signing’ the proper verb for ‘speaking ASL?’ Clearly, I am clueless.
So clueless, in fact, that when I was informed via 504- a classification for a student meaning s/he has special needs- that one of my students was hearing impaired, I had no idea what was expected of me or how to approach the problem. I read the 504, I understood the situation to some degree, but office memos, particularly in the Public School System, often have little to do with reality. I received an obscure graph, sent to me by the Hearing Impaired Coordinator. I only know it was her because she stapled her business card to the graph, and I only know that Hearing Impaired Coordinators exist, as a profession, because she had a business card to prove it. Now, mind you, school had started at this point, we had spent the last week of class going over graphs, what each axis means, how to be clear in what you are trying to present, to keep things easy and readable and scientific. It was quite fresh in my head, this notion of simplicity.

That said, I had no idea what this graph meant. It was an antiquated thing, clearly a Xerox of a Xerox of a mimeograph from 1976. I even looked for the graph online, with designs on showing you how incomprehensible it was, but clearly it had been altered since, as I could at least somewhat understand the ones I did find. The graph in question had megahertz on one axis, pain thresholds on another, and some unaccountable measurement, unlabeled, on the third. Bringing a ‘third’ axis into a 2-dimensional graph is a dicey prospect- usually, it will make no sense unless you know exactly what you are doing, and is something kids are apt to do when they don’t understand exactly how to incorporate all the information they need to. However, this came from adults-adults who should know better, given that they were drawing a salary. As well as the mystery axis, there were also, inexplicably, various line drawings of various day-to-day activities in seemingly random places all over the graph. Some bear mention- the normal pets making normal pet noises, a man working a jackhammer, someone flying a kite- I didn’t get it. What kind of noise does a kite make, once it’s flying? Do I have hearing loss?

Given the Hearing Loss Coordinator’s rather hastily penned-in marks and circles on the graph, my best interpretation of it was that the kid couldn’t hear either dogs barking or candy floss being made, depending on the Megahertz value, but was fine hearing the sound of snakes slithering on concrete and Vespa moped engines built before 1967. As always, I was still clueless.

As it turns out, I didn’t need the graph. This kid was an expert at being hearing impaired, having done it his whole life and -initially- I was relieved. He had a high-tech hearing aid. So high-tech, in fact, that it was wired to a microphone that I wore around my neck, and transmitted my voice on an FM frequency directly to the hearing aid. I wore it dutifully. In the beginning, though, I didn’t really know how to shut it off.

You don’t need to be a genius or even a Hearing Impaired Coordinator to see where this is going. On the day of the Incident, I made quite sure I had given the class proper instructions and set them up to carry on without me for a minute. I felt safe enough to slip away from class to go take a pee. It wasn’t until I noticed the loud and telltale sound of urine filtering through the splash-guard at the bottom of the urinal that I realized that it was being broadcast. Poor fucking kid. I felt awkward seeing my teachers at the grocery store.

I didn’t even flush for fear of tipping him off more, just in case he hadn’t heard it. Still, though, if he did, I could see the blackmail opportunities for this kid immediately, should he want to expose me*. I envisioned myself ducking behind the file cabinet during the next test, saying “ Allright, Quincy, number 1 is C……number 2 is D…..number 3 is B….

*Pun intended