One night when I was nine, my mum asked, offhand, “So do you like Ms. Kessler or Ms. Haneda better?”

We were in a car, she was driving us to Aunty Lillian’s house, and this question made me freeze. I had two third-grade teachers, Ms. Kessler and Ms. Haneda. This was the structure of our elementary school—each grade level was taught by two teachers, splitting the students among themselves. Ms. Kessler taught 3A and Ms. Haneda taught 3B. I was in 3A, so Ms. Kessler was my “homeroom” teacher, so to speak, but they taught different subjects, so we students would be ferried between their rooms a few times a day.

I had no idea how to answer this question. I honestly could not think of a reason I would prefer one over the other. So I executed a diplomatic response.

“I like them both the same.”

“Okay Gracie, if you had to choose one or the other, who would it be?”

And I was terrified. My thinking ran as follows. If I told my mum I liked Ms. Kessler better, Ms. Haneda would find out (remember, everybody finds out everything eventually, there are no secrets) and she would be offended. On the other hand if I told my mum I liked Ms. Haneda better, Ms. Kessler would find out and be offended. I could not really bear to lose face in front of my teachers, who were very nice and did nothing to deserve being ranked lower than the other.

Now you’re thinking, Grace, how would they ever find out? Parent-teacher conferences! I knew that sometimes my parents would drop me off at Nana’s house for dinner when they had parent-teacher conferences to go to, and at the end Ms. Haneda might say, Mrs. Hellman, do you have any questions or feedback for me? and then Mum might let slip that I said I liked Ms. Kessler better than her. And then I would be screwed.

Or maybe Mum would tell Aunty Lillian over dinner, hey, Gracie says she likes Ms. Haneda better than Ms. Kessler and Aunty Lillian would say, oh, is that so? and then a few days later Aunty Lillian might mention the fact to her coworkers, one of whom knows a school board member, who would relay the tea to Principal Stedman, who’d present the matter at an all-teachers meeting. Next item on our agenda: Gracie Hellman from 3A says she likes Tammy better than Abigail. Abigail, what do you have to say for yourself? And then I would be screwed.

How would I find my way out of this terrible dilemma? I briefly thought, I’m going to tell Mum I’ll flip a coin. If it lands heads, I’ll say Ms. Kessler, and if tails, Ms. Haneda. Then if the matter ever percolates through the social network into my teacher’s ears, I’ll have a credible defence: I only said Ms. Kessler because the coin landed on heads! I don’t really prefer one over the other! But my mum would probably see through this ruse and say Gracie, no flipping a coin, just answer the question.

What I actually did was shut down and begin to cry. Like a cartoon computer exploding after being asked a paradox, I broke down into incoherent babbling, and then my mum got mad at me. “Gracie! Why can’t you just answer a simple question? God, we’re not going through this again!”

I am not nine anymore, and my paranoia has since quieted down to more reasonable levels. But to this day, I still feel a cold dread at the idea of being asked to rank people.