I am now Trained in Sexual Harassment...

Wait...that didn't come out right. Please don't sue

Every damn year, we educators, we of the coffee breath and glazed up-since-5 a.m. eyes, have to go through online training in communicable diseases and sexual harassment.

The disease training, I really have no problem with. Every now and then, I come into the bathroom to view a kid holding a tissue to his spouting nose (the air is extremely dry in our building), at which point I'm not certain whether I should

a) get him another tissue
b) report the situation to the nurse, to prevent the spread of whatever diseases the little bastard might have
c) ask him if it's a coke problem, and if so, where can I score some

Thankfully, after viewing the Communicable Diseases and You! video, I now know: Drop all belongings and run like hell. But seriously, the Dos and Don'ts of dealing with potentially fatal situations are always helpful, especially when you spend most of your time isolated in the classroom. It's easy to forget this kind of stuff.

But the sexual harassment video...it takes the taco.

The program is on the Internet. A series of slides. Each has a lesson in sexual harassment, accompanied with cartoon people acting out the scenarios and panning words at the bottom, explaining what is and is not acceptable between coworkers. The lessons have audio, too. So that, if you're illiterate, you can't claim you didn't know. You click "Next" when you've absorbed the lesson, move on to the next, and at the end, you take a short quiz you can either pass or fail. And then you're certified.

That easy.

And yet...I struggle with the idea that, if you're seriously perverted enough to need lessons on "When is referring to your own penis socially acceptable," you'll be obedient and compliant enough to sit through a 40-minute visual aid showing how inappropriate touching can be a form of friction ("and we don't mean the good kind!") in the workplace.

No, I'm not kidding. Or exaggerating.

(Well, maybe a little. But damn sure not much.)

Here are some of the snippets I managed to copy down from my extensive forty-minute training, which, presumably, I needed, given the fact that they don't screen teachers enough to weed out oversexed dodos from working in a closed room with the taxpayers' children all day:

"Hector keeps asking Sally out for a date. But Hector needs to learn that Sally is an independent woman, who probably has a life of her own. Even if she doesn't, she still might not want to go out with Hector. Realize that Hector is Putting Himself in a Position." (I presume, not the good kind, right, Seminar Dialogue-Writers? Right? You're fucking-A.)

"If Linda asks her boss for a promotion in exchange for sex, is that sexual harassment?"

"Two co-workers regularly enjoy sharing ribald jokes. Neither is offended. And yet, if Tracy, in the next cubicle, overhears them, they've just crossed the line into Sexual Harassment...and they didn't even know it." (Bum-bum-bummmm!)

"You might be wondering if touching your own genitals is harassment. The answer is yes...if the other party doesn't want to see it." (Other party? Have people been spying on me in the men's room? Because seriously, sometimes a guy's got an itch, you know?)

Of course, being that we've had five months to complete the training, and being that I blew it off until today, the deadline approaching at 3 p.m. and my health supervisor glaring angrily at me from down the hall, I figured I'd doubleteam. Gave my seventh hour a video clip to watch. Then booted up the program. Not realizing that the audio they were using would soon be replaced with my training:

"How can you tell when you've been sexually mishandled by a co-worker?"

The words boomed across the room. Instant hysteria. Achin' pointing and laughing. A chorus of catcalls: "Oh Teacher, you been misbehavin'?" "Sir! Sir! I'm being mishandled right now! Come see!"

I guess I deserved it.

I'm working on my own sexual harassment comic book. When I'm on break, that's when I'll have time for the truly pointless.