Of cars and penises

There is this blue Subaru Impreza in the school parking lot. It's got the sportscar blue, lowered suspension, bronze rims, and air-intake vent protruding from the hood. Definitely got some labor and non-factory parts. Though not a WRX, still a genuine rice-rocket. I've always wondered whose car it is. I first suspected Yoshida-sensei, 27, the loud, confident and good-natured math teacher/soccer coach who just got married in Hawaii. Nope, he drives a van/SUV, which I thought was driven by Morita-sensei, social science/baseball, who looked more like a family man. I knew that Ehara-sensei (music/band) drives a kei-car and that Nishiyama-sensei drives a van. There's no way the Impreza could be driven by a woman teacher could it?

Today at lunch, mystery was revealed: Yasushi-sensei, the timid and soft-spoken science teacher/science club advisor. In that rice rocket, I went with him and Sakesagawa-sensei to some udon shop in Nawa. The engine had that simmering sound that's trademarked by all powerful, well-tuned engines. Yasushi-sensei (his last name is actually Ogura, but since it's shared by another Ogura at our school, we call him by his first-name) let the engine sit and simmer for at least a minute. I almost cracked up inside.

Yasushi-sensei, who is 28-29, single and still plagued by acne around the mouth, is a sharp contrast compared to all other male teachers at the school. Yoshida-sensei is loud but not obnoxiously so, and he exudes an athlete's natural confidence. Morita-sensei always has that relaxed and exhausted look of someone who has just 1)accomplished some very important task (which in his case is probably baseball practice) or 2)had earthquaking, typhooning sex. Segawa-sensei (PE/volleyball, whom I just met yesterday at volleyball practice), has that beta-male characteristic, fiesty and always interrupting in mid-sentence. Nishiyama-sensei (English/kendo), though quiet, soft-spoken, and sometimes looks flustered (strange trait for a practitioner of kendo), nevertheless commanded respect from others due to senority. Ehara-sensei, the only other non-athletic club advisor besides Yasushi-sensei, is also quiet and demure, but is immensely popular with many students in the band, who come and lingers in the staff room almost constantly. In comparison, Yasushi-sensei has no defining characteristic. Soft spoken, demure, and otherwise mixing perfectly well with background noise. He is, in the words of Biggums O'Steen, "there." (DAMN YOU DAVE!)

However, once we were in the car, his demeaner changed noticeably. He started speaking louder, using more forceful hand gestures, and even cutting off Sakesegawa-sensei a couple of times in mid-conversation (it ocurred to me yesterday that this is something I've being doing with alarming frequency). Driving a cool car truly metamorphisized his personality! I wish I could make this up.

During that car ride, I realized just how powerful a car is as a metaphor for male sexuality. I guess it kind of makes sense: the drag and g-force a car puts on the passenger is SORT OF suggestive of sex. And to think that I've been driving a beat up, 4 cylinder, filthy Tercel all these years... Damn.