Pervert Night Student

Last night I taught two classes of adult students. The first class is full of middle-aged women and they are learning at a beginner’s pace. There are some very kind and sincere students who try hard to learn English in the that class. It went fairly normal for that group. But the second class got a bit lively in the conversation. The second class is full of older people who are mostly retired or soon to be retired with a few younger ladies as well. That class is a semi-advanced class of English speakers.

It was going pretty well up until the end. At the end of the class I played them a song, Frank Sinatra’s “Autumn in New York” and in that song it talks about lovers in Central Park and so on. For some reason this prompted one of my students to confess something to the whole class. I guess he got a bit aroused or confused or both and he came right out and blurted out a happening from his past.

He said he once went to New York on business with a clothing company from Japan to visit Sears Roebuck in New York City. He said he went there in winter and it was extremely cold. I said that that sounds about right for New York in the winter. And so far his conversation was pretty normal. But then he continued on.

And from here it gets a bit strange and certainly borderline raunchy if not down right obscene. He said from New York he decided to fly on down to Miami because he heard there were many pretty girls there (by girls he means white blond women). So he said he gets down to Miami and he continued on “There were no beautiful women, there were only refugees everywhere.” He said it looked like a foreign country or something. I then told him that Miami is known as Little Havana in some circles. He seriously looked upset that there weren't many "beautiful ladies."

So out comes the crux of his story. He said, “I was sitting in my hotel room and I noticed a sticker on a billboard outside. It said, “Call for a bird, with a phone number under the advertisement.” (He proceeded to explain to the class that bird equates with prostitute and so on.)And so I called. And then a few minutes later a big burly man showed up to my hotel room demanding money. The man said, "Money first, girl second." So I gave the man the money and a girl showed up. She drove me around in a taxi for an hour.

After that I asked the girl what’s next. (Here he wiggled his eyebrows like some pervert looking for a soft touch in an airport bathroom.) She said to me, “That's it. That’s all you get.”

You should have seen the look of dejection on his face. He looked as if he had lost all the treasure in King Tut’s tomb or something like that. It made me laugh and laugh and laugh internally but as he is my student and he is paying for the lesson, I just chuckled a bit and told him “Better luck next time.”

The whole while the entire class got really really quiet and they had this uncomfortable expression on their faces. It was a very odd thing to talk about in an English classroom especially considering the way he just said it so nonchalantly. It was peculiar to say the least.

I told Mrs. Booger about it and she thought it/he was gross. I tend to agree with her. She said she guesses that he thinks Americans are sexually liberated and that open sexual talk is normal in American life. I certainly have never given him any kind of impression of that sort. In fact, I keep it almost church-like in our classes whereas this man took it to XXX San Diego porn theater all in a matter of twenty minutes or so.

So that’s my funny story for the week. I hope nothing will trump that for quite a while but you never know what may happen.