I teach Physics and Mathematics to high school students. I just started last month; I've never done this before. I'm kind of an adjunct to the Mathematics department, so I don't really know who the students are, unless they're taking Physics from me.

As I was lecturing to my Analysis* students on Monday, this girl (whose name I still don't know, although I have discovered that she's a senior) who was sitting at the end of the front row suddenly blurted out "I love your mouth!"

Being considered attractive and being the object of crush-type affection is a relatively new thing for me, so I had absolutely no experiential resources upon which to draw when it came to reacting to this. My lecture ground to a halt, most likely with my hand losing steam in the middle of penning some expression on the board (I was so flustered, I can't even remember). I don't have the energy anymore to play games; I remember blurting out, in honest embarrassment, "I don't know how to respond to that," as I desperately tried to reorient the direction of my lecture and pretend it didn't happen.

I don't want to be thought ungrateful, unappreciative, or unflattered. After all, there was a time in my life when I wanted nothing more than to be the object of seventeen-year-old feminine affection. Now, though, I think pretty much everyone in this day and age understands how excruciating certain positions can be for teachers of underage kids. So, the next day, after school during during Jazz Club, when the opportunity to lean over/reach around her to correct her right-hand bass guitar technique presented itself, I was on that shit like a Fremen on a sweaty gym sock.

I don't think she's spoken to me since. I hope she still learns some math.

-----

*I like to do them the dignity of using the term "Analysis" instead of the "My First Math Class"-sounding term "Pre-Calculus".