In The Spring, A Young Girl's Fancy Heavily Turns To Thoughts Of Boobage

I am not one of those teachers who patrols the halls looking for illicit clothing and contraband. It is enough that I must spend 50 minute increments ever-alert for poorly-concealed cell phones, brazen food and beverage smugglers, earphones snaked through hunched-up hoodies, and poochy-lipped smokeless-tobacco dippers. I don't have time to check for striped hair, chained wallets, shorts higher than fingertip level, and butt-holed jeans.

There are only so many items I can fit into my knowledge-imparting agenda.

Last week, I walked across the front of my class after first bell. As usual, my group was fidgety and non-front-facing. Because sitting in the cafeteria for 30 minutes before school starts is simply not enough time to catch up on what happened since 3:00 yesterday afternoon. As usual, I instructed them to face the front, then continued to my desk in the back. The only place my control center will function, due to the vines of electric, telephone, and computer cables that descend from the ceiling tiles. It reminds me of a Dr. Seuss arrangement. And not in a feel-good, nostalgic, childhood-memory sort of way.

I took roll. I've learned the backs of the students heads by now. I called for someone to pass out papers. A girl volunteered, and the class snickered. She went to pick up the papers at the front of the room, at my hand-out and collection station near the pencil sharpener and FrankenWindow. More about him another day.

One of the students said, "I would never leave the house wearing that." I sighed. What fresh heck was I about to become immersed in today? I didn't see anything wrong. Had Passer made a fashion faux pas? Jeans. A black stretchy long-sleeved shirt. A tiny short jeans jacket over that. There was a decal of some sort on the back of the tiny jeans jacket. Maybe that was it. Some logo that I was not privy to. An embroidered 4-20, perhaps. Stoner's holiday. But it merely looked like some kind of heart-shaped emblem to me.

"What am I missing here? Is this something I need to deal with?"

"Uh..YEAH!"

"What's wrong with that? Should I make her take it off?"

"NO!" That came from everybody.

"Well, I'm not seeing the problem."

Passer twirled around, showing me the back of her tiny jacket. "There's no problem."

Let the record show that she had been traipsing across the front of the room, doling out papers from a stack that she clutched to her chest. A chest I had not observed until she put down the assignments and trucked on back to her desk.

"I think that's a little low. You need to pull that up."

"Or button the buttons!" I had SO many helpers. So many concerned about the welfare of a single peer.

Passer hitched up the shirt. But that, much like her original presentation, was only for show. Passer took a sweatshirt from another student, and wore it while they worked on a floor activity toppling dominoes. Which was for her own health, really, as she could have caught a deadly chest cold from plopping those puppies on the cold tile.

At lunch, Passer had that V-neck down to her navel. One of my lunch table companions spied the contraband cleavage, and hoofed it over to instruct Passer to cover up, Buttercup, by putting on a jacket. Which she did, but left the zipper open. Mr. Principal joined us and surveyed the situation. He is not one to broach the subject without female backup. It's a litigious world we live in. He made sure she had already been informed of her indiscretion, and called her over in full view of all enjoying the delicious repast of nachos, salsa, and ice cream. Making eye contact only, he told her to zip up that jacket and never let those appendages see the light of day on school property.

Seriously. Don't parents know what their kids are wearing to school?