The Woman in Class

I realize that sometimes older students (meaning over 40) are insecure and try to make up for their age in supposed knowledge. This is displayed in a number of awkward and usually annoying traits, the least of which is not the fact that they talk too much, usually repeating themselves several times in the same run-on sentence, as well as throughout the class.

One woman in a particular class of mine believes that because of her work experiences she holds the key to the theme of our class, Management. I find few things more annoying that hearing, "well [this] worked in my library because my manager did this," or "I have found that [some managing technique or aspect of communication] works best in my situation and here's why" after which she launches into a 15 minute rambling about something we don't care about. It isn't relevant to the rest of us, many of whom have yet to work in a library setting.

This woman talks and laughs at a decibel that I don't find appropriate for librarians, especially considering the extremely quiet demeanor of our instructor.

Today, said woman and I were the only ones in the room before class began. (This will never happen again, I assure you.) She began by telling me how she was ill this past week with puking and diarrhea, which she caught after her son returned to his school in Kentucky. She reiterated several times how she had been feeling bad (before the puking, fever, diarrhea) and she just knew something was wrong with her son. When she called, she found him in the hospital and she "was ready to drive down to Kentucky to take care of him, no matter how bad" she was feeling. I'm sure every college boy would love for his mom to come to school and pick him up.

At this point, she told me never to have kids until I was ready to drop everything to take care of them. Duly noted, Lady.

From that comment on children, she brought up her daughter, because, sadly enough, her daughter has expressed since she was 11 years old that she never wants to have kids. The woman acted like it was a completely new phenomenon for girls to say this...but I told my mom this all throughout my growing up to make her mad and sad all at once. The woman began telling me why her daughter didn't want kids, beginning with really heavy, out of control periods when she was in middle school. This girl had to go on birth control at an extremely young age to deal with it. "Ain't nothin' else wrong with her. Just that." That's it? I was nearly throwing up at this point, and thinking it could not get worse.

Turns out, recent tests have shown that the daughter has what I would call a cleaved uterus. Let me explain, as the woman did in the empty, echoing classroom. Her daughter was born with this split uterus, so two of them, which also means she has two cervixes (I don't know how else to say that, and I'm sick that I actually wrote it). Every month, it was as if this poor girl was having two periods at the same time. God bless her!

My face (Oh Elaine, you should have seen it!). I know I wasn't hiding anything. I was disgusted, horrified, and so sad for this woman's daughter, who must have wanted to DIE in middle school.

At this point, I was wishing for a means of purging myself of the information that she had so openly dumped on me, a complete stranger (I've never spoken to this woman before). As another girl entered the classroom, the woman indicated that it was okay by her if her daughter never had kids, but she worried that her son would make up for it. Great - her son's a nympho. Brilliant. Needed to know that just about as much as I needed to know something about her daughter's two cervixes.

I actually gagged each time I wrote that word.

Any suggestions for flushing my mind?