Shame Shame

As promised, here is my next pr0n post. I hope folks don't actually
think I don't know how to spell pr0n. I do know how. And I'm
proud of it. But I don't want people searching for it and ending up
here, so I am using the spelling that I see in emails that want to slip
in through the filter. And at school, the real spelling would probably
bring up the big yellow school bus with the big red stop sign that
blocks inappropriate content. Shame, shame, everybody sees your
schoolbus! The kids sure make a deal of it when somebody gets
the schoolbus.

Looking back at my last post, it kind of seems like I am wondering
when it will be OK to let my child watch pr0n. That wasn't exactly
the angle I was going for. When will he be sufficiently well-adjusted
and mature enough to make socially acceptable decisions when he
does find such images? And not be scarred for life. 10 or 12 inches.
That's what I was getting at.

Now, on to my tale of teachers and pr0n. Way long ago when I
worked in a very rural school district, I hung out with a gang of
wild, Trivial-Pursuit-playing, weekend-binge-drinking teachers.
Which is to say about 90 percent of the faculty. More specifically,
there were two that I hung out with quite a lot. We had some wild
3-way parties. No. Not like that. You couldn't have found 3
people less attracted to one another in that manner. Because we
had no issues with romance, we could get quite obnoxious and
inappropriate with each other. Those out of the loop, such as
administrators and students, couldn't understand our 3 Stooges
kind of relationship. Some accused me of trying to steal Bob
away from Betty after she had introduced us. Some students
assumed Bob was my boyfriend, and asked what it was like
to kiss a man with a mustache. Eeeww. I had no notion of ever
kissing Bob, and I certainly wouldn't be discussing such a thing
with students. The principal and athletic director all but looked
over my head and winked when Betty drove me to school one
morning for a meeting. Double eeeww. Not that there's anything
wrong with that. But to me that would have been like French-
kissing your grandma. There are some boundaries that must
not be crossed, even in the imagination. Just because I woke
up to a flat tire on my car, and called her for a ride, did not
mean that those men could create a fantasy about us and give
each other the raised-eyebrow wink.

Betty was the ringleader of our gang of 3. Sometimes, we
included the horsefaced Art teacher, who was new and easily
corruptible. She was also very dumb. Like we could be talking
and say, "Oh, look at those horses in that field. Do you think
they're pretty?" And one of us would answer, "Nay. Don't
think so." And the other would say, "We-e-e-ellll." Like
Mr. Ed the talking horse on that very old TV show. Horseface
wouldn't get that we were making fun of her, but we were
highly amused. We really did like her, though.

Our other sometimes co-hort was Di, the counselor. Di used
to be a coach at another school near my hometown, though
I had never heard of her. She was about 10 years older than
us, and was hot to trot for the Biology teacher who also raised
grapes as a cash crop. You may have seen his grape stand
along Hwy 44 near St. James, Missouri. He made enough
money with it to put his kids through college. We always said
that Di was very good at her job, whatever it was that she did.
We never actually saw her do any work, or heard her talk
about the working part of her job, which seemed to be standing
outside the Biology teacher's classroom. Di was somewhat of a
mystery. She said that at her old school, she was simultaneously
accused of screwing the senior boys, and screwing the girls on her
team. We didn't think she had any inclinations in those directions,
as the Biology teacher was the only one we ever saw her show
affections toward.

So we had our two associates, one who was worldly, one who
was a bit naive. Betty was from South St. Louis. That means
she did not have a bashful bone in her body. Sometimes, when
she went home for a visit, she rented pr0n tapes to bring back
to our town. (This was so long ago, VCRs were new gadgets.
They even had Betamax back then.) Bob and Betty and I would
watch them without sound, and make up our own dialogue. We
thought we were hilarious.

Betty devised a plan to invite Horseface and Di to her house
one Friday night, the nights we usually kept to our threesome.
She was going to put a pr0n tape in the VCR, and after
a few drinks and some TV watching, she would point the
remote and say, "I wonder what else is on." Then she would
hit the 'play' button and start the tape, at some graphic point
in the movie. OK, so maybe Betty had consumed a beer or
ten at the time she came up with this plan. Because any fool
knows that the lights on the VCR come on, and you can
hear the tape grinding when it starts. Bob and I were hysterical,
and told Betty this would never work. She begged to differ.

I still remember the name of that movie. "Up in the Air." Let's
just say it involved the concept of The Mile High Club. We
had already seen it several times by the time Betty invited
our guests. I don't know if she rented it over and over, or
if we spent every night that week watching pr0n. There's
nothing else for young single teachers to do in farmland.

Bob and I got there early, and the 3 of us giggled like
schoolgirls over Betty's dastardly plan. I think she wanted
to see if they'd watch, or if they'd be shocked, or what
they'd do. She said, "Horseface is so dull. I don't think
she's ever had sex. Duh. Even though she's sort of attractive,
I don't think anybody could date her without going right
to sleep." Of Di, she said, "That Di is no spring chicken.
I am sure she's doing it with Bio Boy." She was a regular
Dr. Ruth, that Betty.

The guests arrived. We were bored to death with their chatter,
though Di could be amusing at times. She looked like Carol
Burnett, but with dark hair. She drank wine. Not that she was
any more cultured than the rest of us hicks, who all chose beer.
(If I ever did anything like that, that is what I would have chosen,
you know.) Betty continually asked, "Can I get you more to
drink?" Di looked at her funny, and Horseface said, "Sure."
She slurred a little more each time she said it. It was SO gosh-
darn hard to try and make conversation with her. Like staying
awake for 4 days and accidentally drinking a bottle of cough
medicine with codeine.

Betty said, "Enough of your boring story. Let's watch some TV."
Di said, "What are you up to?" Di was hard to outsmart. After
about 10 minutes of network TV, Betty tried her plan. Horseface's
mouth dropped open, and her big eyes bugged out. That's why
we called her 'Horseface.' That, and her flat, long face and flaring
nostrils. "What is THAT?" she slurred. I'm thinking she meant the
movie, not the act of intercourse. Di said, "You guys!" She made
some excuse and left shortly after that. We left it playing, and
made some lame excuses like, 'bathroom,' 'more beer,' and
'snacks' so we could all end up in the kitchen and giggle.

Betty said, "It made Di horny, so she had to leave to go to Biology
teacher's house and get some." This made Bob and I shake with
our silent heehaws. Betty went on, "I think Horseface is kind of
enjoying it--if she can figure out what it is." Soon thereafter, we
made up some excuse so Horseface would leave. She had used
up her entertainment value, and was just too boring to spend
any more time with. We wanted to rehash the whole evening
without her.

The next night, at one of the big parties with most of the faculty,
Betty asked Di, "So, how did you like that TV show last night?"
Di answered, "Betty, I'm not an idiot. I know you were playing
a tape." She didn't seem offended or amused. That's why she
was an enigma. And a story like this shows you how much each
of us needed to get a life.