Tuesday, May 27, 2014

Congratulations on Ruining Sex for Those Kids!



The children will fall silent as you step into the room, not for fear of your countenance, but for the muted tales that their older siblings will have told them of you.  Even your introduction, flush with candor, will make their blood run cold in their veins.

"Hello class.  I'm Mister Jacobson," you'll announce, depositing your briefcase on the table in front of them.  "Your sex ed teacher."

You'll punctuate your sentence by opening the briefcase and removing your smart phone from it.  The briefcase will be empty aside from this device and a single sheet of paper, on which you'll mark attendance later.  You'll take your phone and, using a cord provided by the school department, plug your phone into the projector sitting in the middle of the room.  With that done you'll fiddle with your phone a bit, then look out over the room, reading through the names on your attendance list.

When you reach James Frankletorp's name you'll pause.

"Are your grandparents Gloria and Shem Frankletorp?" you'll ask him.

"I guess," he'll mutter in response, eyes still fixed on his desk.  He'll know what's coming.  The whole class will know what's coming, but James will have the misfortune of being the one to bear the full brunt of your attention.

After he responds you'll pick up your phone again, fiddle with it until you find the relevant file, then turn off the lights and turn on the projector.  Light will scintillate on to the screen, requiring delicate effort and tuning until it sharpens into a still image of two elderly white people facing one another in the nude, bodies loose and baggy, faces harrowed.  Once the image comes into focus you'll press play on the video.  The elderly white folk will immediately begin touching one another, painfully unaware of the fact that they're being filmed.  They'll clumsily smash their bodies together, grinding, moaning, sweating, grunting, cursing, praising Jesus, and, at one particularly fraught moment, begging one another to stop.  When they finish they'll do so with terrified looks on their faces, as if this might be the way they die, as if they might be found locked in this terrifying, macabre embrace.  The video will end soon thereafter, you'll switch the projector off and the lights back on.  The students will all be staring ahead, all except James, who will be staring at his desk.  It will look like he's been weeping quietly to himself.  You'll smile and begin speaking.

"This is what sex is.  Sex is horrible.  Sex is hideous.  Sex is the source of all shame.  To have sex is to give in to base desire, to become as those elderly folk are, truly reprehensible.  Never have sex."

After you finish you'll pack up your smart phone, exit the classroom and leave the school, pausing only to deposit the attendance roll sheet with the principal's office.  Then you'll get in your Honda Accord and begin driving towards your next destination, another school, filled with another group of children, one of whom, you're sure, will soon to be subject to a most unpleasant surprise.

Congratulations on Ruining Sex for Those Kids!

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