The Underwear Story

Some of you may already know this story. I had a request from a fellow blogger to share it, so here you go Vesper!

Just over 3 years ago, I was a TOC is the Surrey school district. Around Easter of that year, I got a call to cover a 7th grade class. I did all my training with very little people - kindergartners and first graders, so 7th grade is NOT my favourite grade, but needing the money I took the job. As it turns out, the teacher was quite sick and I ended up being in the class for a total of five consecutive days. The underwear story took place on day 2. On that beautiful April morning I left the house without my usual sweater as it was quite warm out. I hopped on the bus (no license, no car) and headed to the school. The whole way there (about 20 minutes) my rear felt a little cool, but I was wearing fairly new pants, so I didn't really think too much about it. I got to the school, opened the classroom door, and began to mentally prepare myself for the day. About an hour later, I was well into the groove of the teaching day. The class was fantastic - a really nice group of kids who genuinely wanted to learn. At one point I was explaining a math concept to one of the students, and I sat on my desk to get comfortable. I could have sworn for a second that when I sat down I could feel the coolness of the desk on my skin, but still didn't think too much of it. Fifteen minutes later saw my students head off to another teacher's classroom and the beginning of my prep block. I headed off to the staff washroom, and that's when I discovered why I felt a little breezy down there. My pants, right in the ass area, were starting to rip! These were practically brand new pants, and the rip was right over the right cheek! It was one of those rips that would just get bigger throughout the day. I didn't know what to do at first. Luckily at this point it was still fairly small, but when I checked out the situation in the mirror, I could already see my leopard print underwear. Since I did NOT want to be known as the TOC with the leopard print underwear, I knew I was going to have to do something fast. I spent a few precious minutes trying to call my mom and sister to get a spare pair of pants, but neither of them was home. I tried calling a neighbour to find out if she had the spare key on the off chance that she could stop by my place and deliver me a new pair of pants. She wasn't home either. I managed to get some safety pins from the school's secretary and I used those to minimize the view, but it didn't do anything about the fact that the rip was getting bigger. Running out to get a new pair of pants wasn't an option since I'd never be able to make it to a store and back quickly enough by bus. I cursed the beatiful weather that had made me leave my sweater at home. At least with the sweater I could have tied it around my waist. That's when I hit upon a possible plan. The seventh graders I was teaching had sweaters proclaiming they were the graduates of the school that year (you know the sweaters I mean, the ones that all seventh graders get that have their year on the back, and usually each student in the class has signed it). When the students came back to the classroom, I made sure that I was sitting in my chair. Very calmly, I asked the students if I could borrow one of their sweaters for the day. One of the boys eagerly jumped up and handed me his sweater. I was able to tie it around my waist and carry on with the day. Not a single person at that school knew what was going on! I was so grateful to that boy, he loaned me his sweater for the entire day without question. At the end of the day when I returned my sweater, the boy shyly asked me if he could have one of the lollipops that their regular teacher had in his desk for rewarding the students. I told the boy that since he had been so generous and hadn't asked any questions, he could have two. That sweet kid kept one for himself and gave the other one to his friend. On the way home that day I stopped at the store and bought a new pair of pants.