Show N' Tell

“This is my mom’s massager. You turn it on like this.”Pausing a moment for dramatic effect, I scanned the classroom then clicked the power switch on, and the vibrator sprang to life. The humming sound could be heard echoing to the far corners of the room, and all eyes were glued on me as I began to demonstrate the massager and its usefulness in working out cricks. I started by rubbing it all over my neck and shoulders.“If you put it under your chin, it will make your teeth bump against each other.”I demonstrated. My teeth clacked and clicked, and my mouth began to tickle. The kids in my class were watching me eagerly; they too wanted to play with my neat new toy.“Now, be careful. If you push too hard you can bite your tongue.” I removed the vibrator from my chin and I turned the power off. As was customary, the class would now pass my object around the room as I answered questions about it. I handed it to the girl sitting in front of me, who took it, turned it on, and immediately put it between her legs. As I looked around the room for raised hands, the loud sound of the tip vibrating against the hard plastic of her chair rose from between her legs and drifted around the room. She was holding it with both hands, and she had a huge smile on her face. After a few seconds, without turning it off, she handed it to the boy next to her.“Where’d she get it?” someone asked. Since I didn’t know, I ventured a guess.“Santa brought it to her for Christmas.” I tried to look confident and knowing, and anyway, my answer made sense. After all, had anyone ever seen a toy like this? And who else but the big guy himself could come up with something so neat? With the holidays fast approaching, I thought that maybe Santa would bring me one for Christmas this year if I asked. As the boy who now held the vibrator turned it off and passed it down the row to the next child, a girl named Sissy, The first girl raised her hand and said “It feels even better if you put it between your legs.” Sissy clicked the power on and then handed it back to the boy. “Here, try it first,” she said, and he briefly buzzed the toy against his pants and handed it back to her.Meanwhile, my teacher was sitting at her desk, behind me and to the right, a huge smile pasted to her face. But it was not her normal smile. This one was tight with strain, and it made her look older than she was. As the children continued to pass my object around, she just smiled and smiled, looking almost but not quite on the verge of panic, saying nothing, her glance shifting every few seconds from the door to the clock to us and back again. Finally the last student, a boy, finished looking at my toy. He passed it forward to me, and as he did, my teacher said, in a thin, high voice tinted with just enough anxiety to be noticed, “Are there any more questions or comments?”“Why don’t you try it?” asked the original girl, and as she was asking, I handed it to my teacher expectantly, wanting her approval more than anyone’s. Looking at me with a mixture of horror and firm resolve, she took the vibrator, clicked it on, and quickly rubbed her neck and shoulders and even under her chin.“Try it between your legs!” shouted a girl from the back row without raising her hand or being called on.My teacher clicked it off and handed it back to me with a look that was relief, longing and amusement all scrambled on her face like eggs, while at the same time gently admonishing the girl for speaking out of turn. “We must raise our hands before sharing.”I took back the vibrator, relishing my moment in the spotlight to the sound of polite applause. Then I put it in my backpack, and we moved on to the day’s business. In retrospect I can see that my teacher handled it rather well. I mean, how exactly does one deal with a room full of five-year-olds who are rubbing a sex toy all over their bodies, except to just let them finish quickly and hope that some member of administration doesn’t just happen to drop by to see how class is going, or perhaps to offer a word of encouragement or praise to the new first year teacher? Like me, when it was all said and done she had one hell of a story to tell.