Wisdom from Dr. Laura

Let's put one thing to rest right now: I am not a listener of Dr. Laura's show. I can't stand to listen to the woman, with her uncomfortable pauses, and her squeaky voice, and her annoying smacks in the microphone like she's sucking on a piece of candy while she's doing the show. Bottom line, the woman gets on my nerves. With that said, last night, I was running an errand and I turned on the radio to check what was on the AM dial. My first stop is always 1380, but they were running a damn baseball game. So, I switched to 650 and Dr. Laura was on. She was just starting to read an email from one of her listeners, so I left the dial there. I turned out to be happy that I listened, because this email recounted an incident that had quite a satisfying ending. I am going to paraphrase the email as best I can, and I am going to tell it in the first person to better replicate the listening experience I had while hearing Dr. Laura read this listener's email on the air. Here goes -

Dear Dr. Laura,
The other night, I attended a meeting at my child's school where some of the faculty were going to preview the school's new sex education curriculum for any parents who were interested. I arrived and looked at some of the material prior to the start of the meeting. After looking and looking, it quickly became obvious that the mention of abstinence was not part of this curriculum. After the meeting started, I raised my hand and asked why abstinence was not a part of the curriculum. I was immediately met with much hostility and condescencion from the other parents who were there. I was caught totally off guard by this, and I didn't say anything in response to their vitriol. The meeting continued as I sat there totally cowed by what had just occured. After the staff introduced themselves to us, they invited the parents to take a break and go to the back of the room where there were nametags set up. The staff instructed the parents to take that time to apply their nametags, introduce themselves to one another, shake hands, do a little meet and greet. As the rest of the parents did so, I remained in my chair, still very embarassed about what had happened earlier. One of the instructors came up to me and invited me to go back there and join the others. I told the instructor that I probably wasn't the most popular person in the room right now, so I would rather stay put. The instructor left it at that and walked off. I sat there praying about what I should do. All I wanted to do was leave this uncomfortable situation, but I had too much pride to just walk out. I prayed and prayed, and finally, this little voice in my head told me to stay put and do nothing. A couple of minutes later, the other parents were ushered back to their seats. Once they were seated, one of the instructors said,
"Now, what we are going to do is teach a sample class to you in the exact same way we would teach your children. Everyone take off your nametags and turn them over. One of you has a flower drawn on the back of it. This flower represents an STD. Whoever has that nametag, please identify yourself."
A man raised his hand and identified himself as the flower nametag. The instructor then asked the man whose hands he shook during the meet and greet. He identified them, then the instructor asked them whose hands they shook, and so on and so on.... The instructor then said, "So as you can see, from this one person, all of you caught an STD." It was then that something in my brain clicked. I stood up and said,
"Excuse me, I want to apologize for any disruption I caused earlier with my questions, and I am going to leave now. But there is one thing I want to point out before I leave. Not quite everyone in here has an STD. You see, while you were all shaking hands, I abstained. Goodnight."

And Good Day to You, Sir