In my job as a life skill teacher for high school students who have moderate to profound mental challenges, the memorable experiences pile up rather quickly. There are a few I would rather forget. One in particular memory is one that no matter how hard I try I can never forget. The day I had to buy a bra for a student began with a warning.

One of my students cannot speak but makes moans, hoots and takes your hand to communicate. When she is upset everyone with in a mile knows it. As soon as she got off the bus she began to moan. Her moans were never easy to listen to. This day they were even more challenging than other days. As best as I can describe the sounds she made that day, it sounds like a weather siren only louder.

Nothing my staff and I did would make her more comfortable at least enough to stop those sounds. I made a hasty call to her mother. Her mother said, “Well I think I know the problem. Yesterday she ate a pound and a half of cookies, you know the kind with the white cream in the middle, a gallon of chocolate ice cream and a two liter bottle of cola. The problem is she hasn’t gone to the bathroom.” “You didn’t think to keep her home,” I asked? “No, no she wasn’t feeling to badly when she got on the bus” her mother said. “She is now” I said. Her mother said “well she’s there now just keep an eye on her.”

Her moans grew louder and more insistent as the morning went on. She became more and more unwilling to leave her seat. We went to lunch. She had eaten all of her chicken nuggets and most of her potato puffs when she sat bolt upright and then made a scream and ran out of the lunch room with me following as close as I could but she was moving incredibly fast for a young woman five feet tall and weighing 200 pounds. I knew where she was going and hoped she would make it there before complications set in. I found out later that complications had already set in as she and I were running down the hall. She made it to the restroom and I had to stop since even though I am the nicest male teacher in the world, girls in the girls restroom tend to get a bit noisy if I should run in. I chose the better part of valor and stood guard just outside the restroom door. What could go wrong? She had used the restroom independently hundreds of times before……….what could go wrong indeed.

When she went in to the restroom there were I am guessing six other girls in there as well. All of a sudden I heard my student moan extremely loud and the sound of girls voices saying “What the, you can’t do that, stop that and she’s hitting me”. With in seconds she had the restroom all to her own as six very unhappy girls who were skipping class came racing out of the restroom. At this time my para-professionals showed up. One went in and quickly came out saying “she soiled her clothes and has taken them all off.” The vision of what this must have looked like has haunted me ever since.

Thankfully we had extra clothes or so I thought. We had everything this girl could need except a bra. This is not a need a teacher ever really seriously considers even though students have accidents sometimes. What are the odds that a bra could be involved in an accident? Pretty darn high that day I would say. My para-professionals did a heroic job that day helping her dress in record time without a bra. Most high school girl if given a chance to go the day like that would have jumped at it. Not my student. She not only wouldn’t leave the girls restroom but instead stayed in the restroom doorway flashing everyone and anyone.

To make things worse I had a Mennonite student who had had another female student expose her breasts to him earlier in the year. He burst in to tears and cried the rest of the day. I took him to the library first so that there was no chance he would see this current challenge. I called her mother again. Unfortunately she was two hours away. Her mother must have heard the panic in my voice so she quickly called a store and made arrangements for the garment to be ready for me to pick up. My student has more up on top than anyone ever should have and the garment was unlike any garment to support breasts that I had ever seen before.

I walked in to the store and noticed only one other customer. In a near whisper I told the cashier who I was and that I was there to pick up a female undergarment. She in a very un southern way loudly asked "WHAT?" I repeated my request louder She again asked in a very un southern way "WHAT?". Again I repeated my request. She then announced to the entire store and to her manager who had hidden in the back I suspect, what my request was by calling in to the microphone for the store manager and repeating my request.

I looked up and what had been only one other customer had multiplied in to 30 and everyone was laughing. I had no idea that a person could shrink as small as I did from embarrassment. I have never felt a need to be as far away from a place as I did that day Nor have I ever moved as quickly to my car either for that matter.

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