When I was in college several years ago, I took a writing/current events class to fulfill a requirement for my major. At the time, I had no interest in writing, so I spent the majority of class time talking with my cousin Turtle, drawing stupid things on my notebook, or staring aimlessly into space. Sometimes I engaged in all three at the same time. I have a high IQ, and I am able to engage in highly difficult and impressive stunts.
This class was exceedingly boring, to say the least. Usually, the students of the class would painstakingly sit in the uncomfortable desks and listen to the screech of this Red Rocket of a woman, but occasionally, things would perk up enough to catch my attention and provide a laugh or two for the class.
On the first day of class, when the professor walked into the room, I was floored by what I saw. I originally thought that I was in an episode of Seinfeld, but after checking my surroundings, I realized that I was still in a dull colored room in a portable building connected to the side of the library.
This professor had short and curly reddish hair, was dumpy and squat, and her voice squealed with the pig-like charm of Mrs. Costanza. At first it was funny, and Turtle and I spent a few minutes giggling like small girls. Then she started to repeat the same phrases, such as “It’s not fair!“ and “It’s such a heart stopper!” Each time she said this, we snickered at her foolish comments.
I thought that this class would be a good time and a fine addition to my schedule, as it was easy, but not too easy, and boring, but not so much that I fell asleep. My hopes were soon drowned out by the dreadful stories this woman would reference. She seemed to know as much about writing as I do about heart surgery. Faded paint has more going for it than this class did.
I spent a lot of time doodling on my notebook, as did Cousin Turtle. One day during class, while I was completing an intricate work of art consisting of the four colors of my Four Color Pen, Costanza made mention of the Texas mother who drown her children in the bathtub. This story was all over the news for months, and it was sad, to say the least. She drown her kids! What is sadder and less deserving of a joke?
She began to describe the killer mother’s traits and explained why she was sick, then mentioned that she home schooled her children for their entire lives.
Cousin Turtle, who had not even coughed in class, let alone speak, called out with the gravest of faces and most serious and steady of voices, “Yeah, that was her first problem.” Everyone in the room laughed at this comment, while Costanza stood frozen by the comment. I may have laughed the hardest out of everyone, mainly because I am immature, but mostly because it was so far out of bounds, even for Turtle, that I could do nothing more than laugh.
She recovered after a few moments, trying to work her way around the interruption of the joke. I give her credit for even continuing the class after that, because “It was a HEART STOPPER!”
This moment lives on in my mind as the funniest thing to ever happen during this class. I think Costanza agreed with him, but was too mature and serious about her part time teaching job to laugh also. I’m convinced that she took an odd liking to him, and I could have sworn that I saw her and Turtle out at a candle lit dinner a few weeks later.
At the end of the semester, after I had written every paper she assigned and completed every homework assignment (despite the boring topics and easy parameters), I received a B+ in the class. I was content with this grade, and later that day, I met up with Turtle at “Snack East,” the on-campus eatery with such finery as tuna sandwiches and chicken baskets.
Turtle told me that he had received an A in the class. This angered me thoroughly, because Turtle wrote approximately 75% of the papers, and completed even less of the homework assignments. If it was anyone other than Turtle, I would have smashed his face in my tuna sandwich and stabbed him with the pickle, but I had to laugh in the end. He barely did any of the work, and he got a better grade than I did. What an ass.
You may be asking yourself what the moral of this story is.
Make inappropriate comments to your professors about the saddest and most serious of topics, then laugh about it with your friends and classmates. Then, complete less than three-quarters of your assignments, and spend as little time as possible paying attention in class. If you follow these carefully crafted rules, you are sure to ace any class.
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