Last week was spent entirely on getting costumes ready for the Big Recital this coming Saturday. I am the head of the Costume Organization committee and the unofficial tyer-up-of-loose-ends-er, which means that I get to sew the costumes that haven't yet been sewn by the Sewing committee whose work ethic seems to be rather squishy.
My second in command of Costume Organization (read "only person who showed up to help") is a nuclear physicist. Really. She is smart, articulate, fascinating, and a snappy dresser. She used to work for the Federal Government, before she retired to be a mother and organizer of dance accoutrements. Together we heroically brought order to the chaos in studio dressing rooms.
Until she found out about me.
"Did I hear correctly? You taught high school English?" she confirmed timidly. "I never did well in English in high school."
And there it is, the great conversation stopper.
I still don't understand what it is that makes people confess, sometimes even apologize, to me for doing poorly in a class they took twenty years ago. "Nuclear physicist" trumps "high school English teacher" any day. Could it be that I still give off the sit-up-straight vibe that came in handy while I was teaching? Hey, that could be useful. I wonder if I still have the ability to make people spit out their gum by pointing at a trash can, to stop talking by one shake of the head, to make tall people sit down immediatley by pointing abruptly at a chair. . . I wonder why my own children are immune to my superpowers?
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