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The District told us that “teachers are held to a higher standard in society” and that we need to be on our best behavior in public. I’m young and I’m human, but I try to follow The District’s advice. I don’t hang out in our school’s neighborhood, instead, I travel miles across the city to spend time with my friends. Apparently fifteen miles across the river is not far enough.
Saturday night I met my girlfriend, Patti, out for a drink. Patti is a bit of a pool shark, so we went to a dive bar with a couple billiard tables. Patti was on a roll and kept winning games, so we ended up staying late into the night… and morning. I drank my share of cheap bottled beer and enjoyed the atmosphere.
Around 2am, Patti was winning her final game of pool against an arrogant pair of guys who had been talking a lot of trash. I was proud to see that she would beat them and was glad that we would finally get to head home.
When Patti sank the Eight Ball into a corner pocket to win the game, I did a celebratory dance. I held my beer high in the air and screamed something like, “Wooohooooooo! Whooo! Yeeaaaaaaaa!” I think I spilled a little of my beer onto a man standing behind me, but I did not care. I was partying!
As I screamed and danced, I heard a voice from behind, “Ms. Teacher?”
Teacher.
This stopped me dead in my tracks. Why was someone calling me teacher at 2am in a bar on the wrong side of the river? I turned around to come face to face with Mr. Villagomez, one of my student’s fathers.
He smiled and shook my hand.
Oh my god! I was so stunned; I didn’t even stop to wonder what he was doing in a dive bar in the middle of the night.
To make things worse, Mr. Villagomez was with his uncle and his sister, both of whom also have children enrolled in my school. He introduced me as “Linda’s teacher” to each of his family members.
I did my best to smooth down my disheveled hair, and pin closed my cleavage revealing shirt. Mustering up the small bit of the teacher grace that one can possess in a bar after midnight, I smiled and told my student’s family how nice it was to meet them. Graciously, not one of them acted like the dive bar was a strange place to meet. They were kind and we awkwardly chit-chatted about Linda’s progress in school.
I left that bar feeling humiliated and swore to myself that I would never go out in public again. I am now nervous that it will be uncomfortable he next time I see one of the Villagomezs in school. I also pray that the details of our unconventional meeting never reach the ears of Principal!