[Warning: Discussion of sexual abuse in this post]
Do not talk to me on an airplane. When I sit down, normally with headphones already on, book in hand, I am not inviting a conversation with a stranger. And yet, my most recent trip (a short hour and change flight, thankfully) these standard strategies utterly failed in the face of an older woman who just needed to chat. I could tell, 20-minutes in, that I was not escaping this so I settled into a rhythm of “uh huhs” that I figured I could keep up for the rest of the flight. The worst that would happen, I assumed, was that I lost an hour while providing some company to a lady who, at most, lacked the self-awareness necessary to realize that I just wanted to finish my novel. But what a chat it became.
It started innocuously enough. She told me about her life, her children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren. She was a retired teacher and school superintendent and a pastor. She told me about beginning teaching at 19, barely older than her students, and some of the problems and difficulties that entailed. She worked for 42 years before retiring. Things took a turn, however, when she began tell me why she doesn’t substitute teach any longer. She told me about an incident when she had to call a young kindergartner’s parents after the child had swore at her (“bitch, don’t touch me,” she claimed she said). Obviously not a good look for a five-year old, though who knows if that’s what was actually said. In any case, my airline companion proceeds to explain that she called in the students parents and it turns out that it was two dads. The child, who the teacher assumed was a girl, turned out to be a boy wearing girls’ clothes.