Mortified

Once, when I was a graduate student, I assisted an instructor who spent twenty minutes in front of the class with his fly down. He sat on a bench in front of a row of (mostly female students) with his legs apart, his fly gaping, pontificating as was his way, and nothing we could do to get his attention worked. Ultimately, a student raised their hand and said, exasperated at the show, "Dude, your fly's DOWN!"

Today, I had one of those moments - not my fly down, thankfully - but something that I'm sure was distracting to students. It was in one of my good classes, too, which is awful because losing one of the good sections to something - being known as "The Prof who..." for the rest of the term - would suck not just because of embarrassment but because the energy from the good class is what's carrying me through the sucky other classes.