Dear Tell All: At a neighborhood festival in June, I found myself in conversation with a student teacher from another grade at my son's school. We had chatted in passing during the school year, but at the festival we were both drinking and dancing and cutting loose. Late in the evening we found ourselves at the edge of Lake Monona behind a willow tree, and we had a pretty intense makeout session. She was moving on to a full-time teaching job at another school in a neighboring state, so I assumed I would never see her again.
Fast-forward to August. My wife and I just found out that this teacher was offered a full-time job by my son's school and my son is going to be in her class. I know my wife and I will have to interact with the teacher a lot, and I feel enormously awkward. Also, I know it sounds teenager-ish, but that night was one of the hottest things I've ever experienced. And I feel awful about it.
How the hell am I supposed to get through this year? The guilt and, to be honest, the lust are tearing me apart.
Summer Lovin'
Dear Lovin': Is your name Don Draper? If so, proceed immediately to your liquor cabinet. If not, grow up. You and your son's teacher share a common goal, which is for your son to get a good education from a caring and responsible teacher. Keep that in mind at all times. If anything you're thinking of doing would interfere with that, smack yourself upside the head until you drop the idea.
Now that that's taken care of, what about your wife? Do you think it would bring you closer together for her to know about your "hot for teacher" moment, or does it seem like maybe that would ruin every minute either one of you spend in the teacher's presence, plus millions of other minutes? Yeah. That's what I thought.
As that mean camp counselor in The Parent Trap said, "Let the punishment fit the crime." Your punishment, Lovin', is to boil in the hot oil of your guilt all year long. Feel every minute of it. And count yourself lucky: This teacher must be a good one, because you've been schooled.
