My Two Inches Of Ivory

A long time ago, when i met women, thirty five plus women who were childless i would get curious.
i was a kid then. i would wonder why they dint have any, if they chose not to or it didnt happen dint quite work out, so many questions.
There was this one teacher in school. Mrs S. s
she was this very beautiful lady who wore her sarees in a very careless, barely just draped way and she had this whole just out of bed look going for her. ( i dont know how they let her get away with it)
her sarees were always flowery and she had this lovely scent about her.
but her manners! she always left them back at home. she was mostly arrogant and then sometimes sarcastic, she taught English and made fun of pronounciations.
if you dint answer she would just stare at you in this "where did you come from dumbfuck" way.
and considering it was english one would wonder how hard it could be. trust me, she made it quite awful, even for me who loved the classes.
then one day, someone came up with a theory of how Mrs S.s did not have kids, which was why she was such a monster.
and soon anything she did became " yeah she doesnt have kids so she is mean" and then it got worse.
we were growing up and sex was getting to be discussed with details and gory details involved.
girl friends were having dreams of the "one eyed snake" as it got to be known after julia roberts did her share to help us girls with subtle references.
too much giggling for the girls and too much hormones for those icky boys who as far as i was concerned were simply being a pain.
for some odd reason i liked this lady and so one day when after one of her famous outbursts she left, some boy declared how " her husband must not be giving it to her well" supplemented by " no wonder she doesnt have kids" completely got to me.
i remember being so upset. after that i would always smile at her and she would nod.

The reason why i said all this is just that i worry about kids.
i worry that it might not happen for me. its this very wrenching thought that i constantly shy away from.
i remember watching Mrs s.s with smaller kids. to see if she would react any different.
a little nicer perhaps.
maybe, when no one was looking.
i worry in my little paranoid sleepless moments that i might become a bitter 40 plus woman.
i am not saying that all of us get like that. some of us choose the way it is.
but.
i know me. i know how il behave.
and i dont want that.
i want to look up Mrs S.s sometime.