EDIT: Forgot to put a title to the post! Now corrected.

The advanced high school class at work is going to be in a performance this spring. (Not the class I’m teaching – the class at my full-time job. The class I’m teaching will also be in a performance this spring, but that’s not relevant to this post.) We’re buying costumes for them, but need everyone’s measurements before we can do that.

Since I was in the office during their class, I walked down the hall to ask for the measurements of the one girl who still hadn’t turned her’s in. I handed her a tape measure, but she turned and said, “Aren’t you going to measure me?”

At this point, 23 years of male training popped into my head: About how you’re never supposed to touch your students. (She isn’t my student, but that’s not really the point.) About how you’re never supposed to touch your female students. About how you’re really amazingly never supposed to touch your underage female students.

And, of course, about how I don’t actually know how to take measurements.

Making me feel more uncomfortable were the demographics of the class. It’s a high school circus arts class, consisting entirely of girls, all of whom have been taking circus classes for years and almost all of whom look way too adult for their 16 or 17 years. And all of whom have bodies that I would have killed for when I was their age, and still might be willing to commit some lesser crime for, today. Maybe a nice spot of arson or larceny.

I turned to the instructor: “Can you measure her?”

The lead instructor looked at me, and told me she didn’t know what measurements were needed for the costume.

Ugh. “Neither do I,” I told her. “I’m just the messenger: we need one more set of measurements, and I was told to get them.”

The dance teacher came in, thank heavens. I called, “Hey, can you take her measurements?”

“Sure. What do you need?”

Again, “I’m just the messenger. These are the last set of measurements we need.”

The dance teacher was able to get everything, although each measurement was followed by, “What else do you need?”

It became a game of call-and-response. “I’m just the messenger! I don’t know!”

“What else do you need?”

“I’m just the messenger! I don’t know!”

At last, the measurements were done and I could go back to the office. But when you’re already feeling down? Let me tell you, nothing’ll kill your confidence like having to get the measurements of a really fit teenager.