I was strutting down the school hallways when a colleague complimented my trippy-print, flower-power skirt. “Thanks! It’s vintage.” I’d cut off the scoop neck of the dress and had sewn a zipper in it to make a long, flowing skirt with a knee-high slit up the back.

Within the first few minutes of my first class period, my juniors were busily typing away to fulfill the task due at the end of the period.  A student waved me over, and I sat down in the desk next to her to answer her question.

And that was the moment I felt it. That harrowing moment when you know your butt is touching something it shouldn’t.

“What? Yeah, your thesis looks fine. Great.” I ran my hand down the back of my skirt, as though smoothing it out as I re-adjusted in my seat. Sure enough. Definite side-butt flesh-on-chair contact. Had the students noticed and not said anything before I sat down? When did it rip? Had an errant breeze given these 17-year-olds a glimpse of my “I Heart Paris” underwear? No. There’s no way they’d be mature enough to keep it together. But the hole was huge. It was like the slit didn’t stop at the knees anymore and just….yup, went all the way up.

Turns out, vintage threads…are old.

“Yup. Looks good,” I said, standing up. Yup, it’s totally normal to have a death-grip on the back of your skirt, darlings. They were all engrossed in their laptops. Thank god for attentions spans satiated only by glowing screens! I nonchalantly walked out of the room and booked it to the nurse’s office.

I burst through the door, frantically shouting, “Sewing kit!”

The secretary paused her typing at the front desk. A student with an ice-pack on his eye shifted it to the other eye, glancing from his sickbed to where I stood. The nurse nodded and retrieved my deliverance.

Her eyes gave me a once-over as she held the kit hostage in her hands. “Where—“

“A very unfortunate place. Is there an empty room I could use?”

She smirked, but handed over the kit wordlessly and ushered me to a room.

The safety pins offered iron-clad comfort, but they still left gaping inch-big holes for the spaces in between. There was only one way. My hands shook, so it took me awhile to thread the needle. The thought: “Hurry, get back to class!” battled with: “You’re a lady, for goodness sake!”

The thread from the 70s practically disintegrated beneath my hasty seamstressing. This wardrobe malfunction had wiped away any smugness about being proud of skirt-updating skills. I sewed with the speed of hallway gossip about the quiz next period. A bit slipshod, but it would get me through the day. I headed back to face the juniors.

Oh, them? They were all still typing away, as though nothing had happened.