Posted on 02/17/2018 4:06:29 PM PST by nickcarraway
Steve Kenilworth sighs as he flops down on the couch in the staff room at Rick Astley High School, his Grade 8 math classes finally done for the day.
"I'm grateful to have such a full workload this semester because it really keeps my mind off…my…my situation," he shares in a sternly hushed tone as both of his eyes scan the room.
Kenilworth explains that several months ago, much to his shock, biology teacher Samantha Young confessed that she has romantic feelings for him. Meanwhile, however, Kenilworth has been helplessly in love with English teacher Dana Freeman for a number of years, and that number is six.
"I mean, both of these women are just magnificent. And equally so. Any man would be lucky to be with them. Me, on the other hand, I'm just kind of a weird dumb tool? I seriously don't know why either one bothers to acknowledge my existence. Ugh, I mean, look at me. I look like Steve Buscemi's exhausted, vaguely nauseous great-uncle."
"What I'm trying to get at here is that two sides of this love triangle are very clearly equal, whereas the third one is not," he continues thoughtfully. "I wish I could say this whole mess is an equilateral, where every side's the same. But come on. Who am I kidding? Dana and Sam are both radiant pillars of light, titans of intellect. Whereas for dinner last night, I ate cereal off a Frisbee because I had no clean bowls in my home."
"And before you get any fancy ideas, who said anything about milk?"
Asked what he plans to do about this frustrating romantic entanglement, Kenilworth shrugs wearily. "I'm trying to figure that out. Regrettably, my Texas Instruments geometry set doesn't come with a moral compass."
"In the meantime though," he says, "I figured I may as well calculate the height of our love triangle. Or maybe even the area! I mean, why not, right? It's just a neat and fun thing to do! Gosh, it's both so neat and fun!"
Kenilworth springs to his feet and crosses the hall into an empty classroom, where he immediately busies himself scrawling complex equations all over a white board like some kind of weird secret genius janitor in a '90s rom com.
"I've tried to talk to her about my feelings but we just keep creeping around the perimeter of the issue," he says. "Which, for those interested, with specific respect to an isosceles, is equal to 2a+b. That's how you'd go about solving for P in that case. So."
"Does anyone have any questions?" he adds, even though last I checked, this reporter is equal to one person.
Kenilworth returns to the staff room, dejected. He opens a yearbook and gazes longingly at Dana's staff photo.
"As far as English teachers go, man, she's acute one," he says, before exploding into a fit of howling laughter at his own joke, a sound not unlike a hyena freaking out with joy about a Boxing Day sale continuing on for an extra week after he'd assumed it had ended.
At the time of this writing, forty minutes had elapsed and Mr. Kenilworth had still not recovered from his joke.
Don’t dip your pen in the company inkwell.
Well, that’s got my vote for post of day ;-)
(I was in love with my high school geometry teacher, so I guess the story squared with me.)
There is nothing so obtuse as a math teacher in love...
Company toner?
It’ll all be over when/if one of them gets a look at his square root.
I was in lust for my High School English teacher ...
Always choose the girl who loves you, you can’t trust the other girl.
If protestations of "love" were concrete realities, divorce would be nonexistent.
Considering your screen name, this carries a lot of weight for this particular story.
Why the Mama and Papas broke up
I saw J Geils perform back in the day. Great show.
L
Considering where he teaches, he’s never gonna give her up
I’m eating cereal off a Frisbee right now. /s
First of all, he is a fool for doing this at work.
Second, if he drags his feet long enough, the girls will get a high schooler to take his place.
Rick Astley High School? I thought Rickrolling had disappeared.
...I'm just kind of a weird dumb tool..
Sounds like maybe that's all he's got going for him.
Normally thats true, but I met my wife at work and we have been married 15 years. And still work together!
Are you Newt???
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