8:23 PM

Extra Credit

This prompt was too hard to resist.



1.) Write about a brief, but scary encounter with one of your old professors or teachers.

It was my second year of teaching at a local college and I took part in the "Learning Commnities Institute". My role was to pair up with a professor from another department and integrate our curriculum. We would share a cohort of students but our classes would be held separately. Sounds easy enough, right?

I was paired with Professor "Maverick". Maverick has a stringy white combover atop a rectangular head. He often has spittle on the corner of his mouth and he has a large torso perched on the skinniest sticks of legs you have ever seen. His pants are 4 inches too short, and he wears them cinched under his large torso by a skinny belt that is barely keeping them up on his nonexistant ass. He speaks with an accent that I have never heard before. To say he is intriguing is an understatement. I wanted to know more about this human caricature. I welcomed the opportunity to meet with him.

When I walked into his cluttered, dirty office, he was eating cookies. He began talking immediately, going on and on about his course and his tests and his willingness to respect my professional autonomy. Then he tried to be hospitable and offered me a cookie. No thank you. He looked disappointed, but I didn't think I could eat anything that came out of this dirty office. Would I like a water at least? All that listening had really made me thirsty. How dirty could a bottle of water get from simply sitting in a dirty office? I accepted the offer.

Maverick then did the unthinkable. He picked up an old yogurt container. A quart sized one. He opened a teeny tiny refrigerator housed under the filthy desk, and he retrieved a tiny little ice tray. He then (gag) used his longish yellow fingernails to pry 10 little ice cubes out of the tray. One by one.

He placed them into the yogurt container, proceeded to take it into the MEN'S BATHROOM to fill it with water, and topped my beverage off with a straw he found in his top desk drawer. Then, with a crooked but sincere smile, he handed it to me, obviously proud of his hospitality.

What's a girl to do? Drink the Maverick-infested yogurt water or be a complete beeotch and just leave it sitting there after he had worked so painstakingly to prepare it?

Well, what would you do?

4 comments:

StitchinByTheLake said...

Oh what a dilemma! I'd sip...or at least pretend to sip getting close to the cup. Then I'd ask if I could take my water with me when I left and dump it in the nearest trash can! My question is, as different as he was, what did the students think of him? Was he a good teacher? blessings, marlene

Mrs. Buck said...

eeeeeeew! that would totally freak me out! I agree with stitchinbythelake, I'd pretend to take a sip or two and then get rid of it asap!

Anonymous said...

Take a sip...just one small one. We've put much worse in our mouths. And there are people in other countries who would welcome that water and take it from people with much dirtier and more yellower finger nails.

The Wizzle said...

I wouldn't touch it. I literally could not drink any without gagging. I almost couldn't just type that sentence without gagging, actually, and it ain't morning sickness.