frailty

This morning in first period M interrupted my class while I was teaching them how to stagefight.  I was in the midst of pretending to deliver a knee to the jaw to one of my grade nine boys when she appeared by the door and gestured at me.  I left my students unsupervised and stepped out into the hall to see what was going on.  Usually when M interrupts it is to ask me to cover for her in counselling.  Instead she said, I feel naked.  Do you have any lipstick?

This was an extremely strange request in a lot of ways.  First of all, isn't it unusual for adult people to share things that touch their mouths?  (My mother was highly opposed to my teenage practice of sharing drinks, chapstick, and slobbery kisses with anyone who asked.)  M is 44 and because she is older than me she is supposed to know better.

But it is also odd because we aren't really that close.  I do not know her very well at all, I don't have a history of sharing personal secrets or personal objects with her.  There are people in my life with whom I do share these things, mostly Shawn (who thinks nothing of using a toothbrush I just finished using) but she is not one of them.  She is just a colleague.

And mostly it is odd because she is an adult person, a counsellor, a person who is supposed to be professional and have the best interests of students at heart, interrupting their very important Ass Kicking education to ask me for a cosmetic product.

I gave it to her, of course, and then was interrupted a second time after she had finished using it when she brought it back.


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