"An S?" "Yes, there is one S."

This morning I was reading before class. I ended up only reading for a short set of moments, because I was soon distracted to a point of no return. Well. You know, no return in the sense that by the time the distraction was subsiding it was really time for me to go to class.

Anyway.

So I was sitting in this student lounge of sorts near the newsroom for the paper I reported for last semester, and this group, which I assume to be part of the sports beat, walked in with their editor.

Their conversation,

at first,

was nothing supremely interesting--

however I will say it was more intriguing than specific methodology discussions of between-subjects exposure manipulations in the article I was reading; okay I'll be honest, those details are interesting to me, but I was about t-minus 3 hours away from being free to leave campus for spring break so my attention span for minute research jargon was less than ideal at this point (ANYWAY)--

but it quickly developed so that I was almost literally on the edge of my seat.

I have no idea where they were planning on going later, but from what I could tell their editor was giving them some sort of pep talk/reporter protocol for something like a press conference they were going to attend.

Then.

The editor started talking about indecent exposure. We had received an email about reports of indecent exposure earlier this week from campus authorities, but I didn't know if this was the same thing they were talking about or what.

So then it became apparent to me that the editor had stumbled upon a word he was trying to remember but couldn't quite bring to mind. He asked the students for help, and then as no one could seem to come up with it, he started creating fill-in-the-blank sentences for them.

Are you ready for this?

He said something like, "Yeah, but what is that called? When someone's running across the field [he did a slow motion jog here, in about two paces] and they're indecently exposed, they are a ... ?"

He punctuated his question by placing one foot on the ground as if to indicate to his pupils that they should insert the desired word he was looking for here.

This was killing me that no one knew the answer because it was so obvious!

One student said, "an exposer...?"

Others chuckled. I all but pinched my forehead in disbelief.

I was sitting there wanting SO BADLY to holler over there:

"I believe the word you're looking for is 'streaker.'"

Or, rather, just:

"STREAKER!"

Well, for whatever reason, probably because there was another person in the lounge other than me and not included in the sports beat, or maybe because I couldn't figure out how to be tactful and not make them feel like idiots considering how incredulous I was at the situation before me, I refrained from helping solve the puzzle. I could've bought a vowel for those kids and they all would have been edified.

(Never mind that I'm horrified they are not already edified on this subject to the point that they cannot quickly come up with the term "streaker." I mean, maybe I am inordinately amused by streakers--I am--but Come. On.)

I'm still kicking myself, about 13 hours later here, for not speaking up.

As they moved onto other housekeeping business, another girl entered the lounge and took a seat, so I still didn't jump on my chance to help out the sports beat. Which, really, was stupid, because I actually knew both of these other people in the lounge and really didn't give a rip if they witnessed me offering wisdom about people with an illegal, albeit hilarious hobby.

I think what stopped me more than my audience was the fact that while it may be weird to shout across a room to people you don't know,

"Hey! The answer is streaker!"

I was going on good faith in assuming that it would be bordering on, if not crossing the line over to, downright creepy to

bring the subject back up

several minutes later.

"Ah, excuse me. That word you were looking for about five minutes ago? Just FYI, it's 'streaker.'"

Nonetheless, I'm not sure I remember the last time I was so upset to watch a group of people walk away from me.