Good afternoon!
Today, I thought I would rant about my ongoing saga of the plugged ear and the ENTs who can't seem to fix it no matter what they shove into the orifices of my head.
But I'm not going to do that.
Instead, I'm going to relay a story from my childhood: one that the ending didn't happen until literally two days ago.
Picture it: Michigan, 1970 something. A grade school in a suburb of Flint.
It was a small, two room school. The faculty was the lower grades teacher, we'll call her Mrs. Mann, and the upper grades teacher, my dad. There was a school secretary, let's call her Mrs. Johns.
I'm not sure if stuff like this happened to me because my dad was the upper grades teacher and the principal, or if I just am one of those people folks aren't afraid to ask for embarrassing favors. My entire life it seems like people don't have a problem coming up to me and asking to pick something up or get something off the top shelf. (Which is funny, since I have my own struggles with carrying and reaching things.) I get it all the time. Dearie, can you grab me a can of cream of mushroom soup? I know we're complete strangers, but can you keep an eye on my kid while I step into the bathroom stall?
Can you please watch this suitcase while I leave the airport?
(Even I know that's a big NO!)
Anyway, I'm just one of those people who wind up helping other people in odd situations.
Which brings me to that Michigan classroom in the 70's.
Schools are different now than they were back in the day, or maybe not, I don't know. Mrs. Mann was overwhelmed, to be sure. She had something like 35 kids in 5 grades (K-4) in her room. She taught everything to all of us, except gym class, which was my dad's thing. Now, teaches throughout time have talked about not having a moment to themselves from the morning bell to the moment the kids are returned to their parents. (And then there's like five minutes between the end of the school day and the beginning of the parental phone calls that fill the evenings.)
The big thing teachers don't have time for, especially back in my grade school years, was going to the restroom.
Also, our little school only had two restrooms: Boys and Girls. Everyone had to use them. EVERYONE. Even the teachers.
Now the teachers couldn't possibly use them when the kids were using them...I mean, my father would have died a thousand times before he let any of his students catch him using the bathroom. And such was the case for Mrs. Mann. She waited until the kindergarten kids had left for the day and the rest of us were doing "quiet reading" or whatever she managed to put together so she could sneak away for three minutes without us kids tearing apart the room.
It was during one of these short absences of Mrs. Mann's that I felt the call of nature. We didn't really have rules about the bathroom. If you had to go, you had to go. If you were gone too long, the teacher would send someone in to make sure you were ok and not fooling around.
So here I am, little second grade Sarah, pushing open the heavy bathroom door, and I hear a sound I'd never heard before.
And adult voice coming from one of the stalls.
"Sarah?"
I'm amazed. Mrs. Mann had all those kids in her classroom, and she knew it was me standing there.
Of course, this being America, our bathroom stalls have about as much actual privacy and, well, nothing. She probably saw me come in through one of the many slim gaps in the stall wall/door.
"Mrs. Mann?"
"Can you tell Mrs. Johns to come in here?"
I don't recall saying anything. I scooted out of the bathroom, walked down to the school office, and told Mrs. Johns that Mrs. Mann needed her in the bathroom.
I, of course, forgot I had to go. I went back to the classroom. And I had, I assumed, figured out the problem Mrs. Mann was having.
My first-grade brain went through everything that could possibly have driven Mrs. Mann to hide in the bathroom and then ask for Mrs. Johns. And I hit upon the most likely reason.
Which I immediately shared with everyone in my classroom. I mean, I whispered it to Debbie and Kim and pretty much let it go from there.
Mrs. Mann, I surmised, was stuck on the toilet seat and needed to be rescued by Mrs. Johns. I couldn't have asked my dad, even though he was stronger than Mrs. Johns. Boys weren't allowed in the girls room NO MATTER WHAT.
Now, of course, that was absolutely probably not the real reason. But with all my experience in my life to that point, that was the only explanation I could come up with.
Mrs. Mann returned to the classroom without a word about it. Most of the kids, because they were older than I was, and also because I'd already achieved a bit of a reputation as an imaginative storyteller, didn't repeat the rumor I'd started.
Now, first grade is a very long time ago. Like, more than fifty years ago. And it wasn't until last week, when I was using the bathroom myself, that I figured out what the real reason was.
I have no way to prove this, of course. Mrs. Mann and Mrs. Johns, if they haven't passed away, are long out of my life. And there's no way I'm going to set my mom to digging up their whereabouts so I can ask them this question:
"Hey, back in the early 70's, that one time Mrs. Manns was in the bathroom and asked me to get Mrs. Johns...was she really stuck on the toilet, or did she get her female punctuation unexpectedly?"
There's no way on early I'm going to ask that question anywhere but behind a wall of anonymity...like a blog!
What's funny is that all the years I've been in uncomfortable female punctuation situations in public bathrooms, it never occurred to me that this was why I'd been sent for help. All these years, I was satisfied with the idea that my teacher had gotten herself stuck on the toilet seat (she was not a heavy lady at all...) and needed the school secretary to rescue her. Nope, it took until now, now that I'm beyond the whole female punctuation thing, that I realize the poor woman probably just needed some female protection.
I've always said I'd never go back to high school. College, yes. Geez, I'd have so much MORE fun in college if I went back now, knowing what I know about real life. But I never thought about going back to my grade school days and righting what I managed to mess up. I would love to go back to this moment in time and be more helpful.
Meanwhile, I am, and continue to be, an idiot.
