Which School Is This?

Story Sent in by Norman:

When I read Valerie's profile, it seemed like she had a lot to say but it wasn't clear what she did for a living. I asked her in a couple of my intro emails and the best answer she gave me was, "This and that."

I was still unclear on what she did for work up until our first date. We sat down to a nice dinner and it was one of my first questions.

She replied, "Oh, this and that."

"So you're unemployed?" I realize it might have been the wrong thing to say, but I was tired of being purposefully kept in the dark. Like it or not, what you do for income is kind of important. Even if she was a secret agent and was sworn to secrecy, all she had to say was, "I work for the government," and I would've dropped it. But her evasiveness only made me more curious.

She said, "No. I work the equivalent of seven full-time jobs."

"Are you a surgeon?" Nothing like a guessing game. Just tell me, damn it.

"I'm a teacher."

"At seven schools?"

"Just one."

"How is that like seven full-time jobs?"

She laughed. "If you were a teacher, you'd understand. Teaching second graders is the most difficult job in the world. Ungrateful little morons."

Sticking up for my second-grade brethren, I said, "Well, they're in second grade after all."

"Old enough to do long division. Old enough to read. Old enough to make me want to throw them all out the window seven times a day. I actually fantasize about doing it, daily. And imagining their parents. And laughing in their faces. That's what I mean when I say I feel like I have seven full-time jobs."

"So your hypothetical seven jobs are throwing kids out the window seven times a day?"

She laughed again. High pitched and creepy. "I wish! But it exhausts me to talk about them. Tell me about your job."

I drive a bus for my city. Not nearly as stressful or hypothetical-homicide-inducing, so it seemed. The rest of the date was pretty normal, but imagining this woman around kids just rubbed me the very wrong way.

We actually kept up a short email correspondence for about a week and a half after the date. I didn't ask her out again but I'd send her messages with something funny I saw online or just make small talk.

One day, just to make sure I was making the right call by not asking her out again, I queried her on her day at school.

"I HATE THEM ALL!!!" she wrote back among a few other expletives. I didn't reply.