The Episode of the Underwire

The first time I walked into an undergraduate classroom to teach, it was 1989. I was 22 years old–almost 23. I was young. I was green. But I did have a lot of enthusiasm. That was 17 years and four institutions of higher education ago.

Since then, I have pretty much seen it all. BTDT. I have fallen down in the classroom; tripped over students, their stuff, my stuff, furniture, and other professors who happened to be sitting in; spilled coffee, water, papers, student files, and the contents of my purse all over the floor; been called a bitch in front of the class by a student; been left love notes and valentine’s cards in the classroom by students; had ink explode all over me during class; had countless embarrassing mechanical malfunctions with equipment…well, you get the picture.

But this was a first.

I returned to the classroom after a two-and-a-half year hiatus last week. First day back in almost three years, mind you. I am now She.Who.Can.Fly.Above.The.Fray.

Ha.

I consider myself a seasoned veteran, mind you. I am She. Who. Is. Unflappable.

Ha.

So there we are last Tuesday, discussing the idea that everything is a text, capable of being read. People are texts. Rocks are texts. Poems and novels and articles (of course) are texts. Songs are texts. Buildings are texts.

I take off my lime-colored, corduroy jacket to prove the point. See, everyone? That’s a text, too. The Jacket. Is a text.

Underneath, I am wearing a white T-shirt. It is nice, new white cotton with a little spandex built in. Not as thin as a man’s undershirt, but not that heavy thick cotton either. Kind of thin and stretchy.

As is usual for me in the classroom, I am gesticulating wildly to prove my point. I happen to glance down.

Protruding out of my chest–the one that is covered in the nice, thin, white, stretchy shirt–is a wire. A pointy, very unhuman-like, which is to say mechanical-like, WIRE. Sticking straight out. Like fucking perpendicular to my body. Into space. Except, of course, it’s held back from its trajectory into the area above the seminar table by my nice, thin, white, stretchy shirt, so that it looks like a little pole holding up a tent. In the middle of my fucking chest.

It is the underwire from my bra.

It has apparently, unbeknownst to me before this point in time, popped out of its little runner in my brassiere, and is now poking into space about three inches. I deduce all this in a split second, inside my head, while something entirely else about texts is coming out of my mouth to my students.

I do not let on that I have noticed that I have a fucking wire emerging like a spring from my torso.

I do not skip a beat.

I imagine in my head (while something else continues to come out of my mouth) that they are now wondering one of the following possibilities:

(a) wow, our instructor is some sort of artificial intelligence automaton that has mysteriously sprung a wire…because lord knows that whatever is springing out the front of her right now is definitely Not Human; or,

(b) wow, our instructor has a pacemaker, and–holy shit–it is about to malfunction right here, right now, in front of us; or,

(c) wow, that is some weird-ass jewelry our instructor wears…does she really think that’s attractive?

As soon as I can, I redirect their attention to the article we are discussing on the table in front of them and put my jacket back on. I basically teach the rest of the class with my arms close to my body, pinching the front of said jacket closed as much as possible.

Later, in the bathroom, I thread the wire back into place.

Time for some new undies, folks.