the way we sat facing the front was in the second row, solo, centaur, and lion. who sat to my left i can’t remember. we were sittin right next to each other. except the tables were grouped in 2. i had my own, and both centaur and lion shared. one day, centaur decides that he’s gonna build hypothetical palisade between each desk. he thought i was too distracting and was interupting his “learning.” somehow it occurred to me that i really didn’t like centaur or lion laughing at me, so i slammed the palisades down with my desk. keep in mind, it was very loud, and it was in the middle of a “lecture.”

so part 2 goes like this. i’m drinking a mountain dew and finish. again, boring lecture, and somehow in my head i thought i could crush the can with my right hand, and smash it on the desk. i lift my arm up high and come plunging down on the table. wack! nothing happened, except now everybody was looking at me, including the teacher. i decided nobody cared so i kept wacking the can against the table creating a loud annoying clanking sound. somehow i got away with this s*&t. then the teacher looked at me and in a calm voice said, “this looks like a good day to break a 3 doller ruler.” he grabs the meter stick, and smashes it in front me. it broke in half. i think i finally tested his limit. oh btw, you guys all got A’s, i got a C -.

Centaur, on the other hand, has a room full of EHS pennants, stacks of Alutants, closets full of EHS sportswear, cupboards full of EHS mugs, and shelves lined with EHS memorobilia. (And a finger ringed with Josten’s.) His autographed Trevor Stanley senior picture is framed and on display above the mantle. He wakes up and paints EHS on his chest every day so that later that night when he comes home and watches old EHS basketball footage on tape, he can rip off his shirt at a moments notice, glance at himself in the mirror, and cheer feverishly as Micah Sullivan gets fouled hard and goes to the line. I will not tell you that he sleeps with his letterman’s jacket on. That would be a lie. That is, if you believe lies to be the beacons of solid truth.

So forgive me if I don’t remember everything in the story I shall recount of biology. There is no missing, invisible, or otherwise unaccounted for Krusty in this one, however, but I reserve the right to insert one later if I deem it necessary. They seem to be quite the trump card. A real crowd-pleaser.

My story is two-sided.

Side A.

Lights are dimmed. Heads are down. Sleep sounds are coming from the back of the room. I think to myself, “Is the fetus snoring?” It’s the third video being shown for the entire period this week. Granted, it’s not a bad video. All about how insects are becoming immune to the pesticides we are using creating super bugs that will eventually wipe out our crops. A tad dystopian, perhaps. But the time of day, the level of light in the room, the pavlovian instinct children develop to sleep when videos are shown, were all working against us here. There were only a handful of us students still awake and we were either not paying attention or fading quickly into slumber. So then one kid makes a slight disturbance (a very Krusty-like looking fellow) and the teacher suddenly flips the lights on and goes over to the video cart to stop the NOVA episode. Literally and without premeditated thought, I let out the biggest sigh of relief and exclaim “FINALLY” as the teacher pushes stop on the VCR. He takes that as a negative remark about his teaching style and rebukes me. I follow up with a remark about being a little sick of videos. Then, he asks the class, very democratically, if they want him to teach or to continue watching the video. Everyone chooses video but me. The teacher, of course, doesn’t see this as a negative remark about his teaching style. He dims the lights and pushes “play.”

Side B.

Despite everything that happened in this class, I was never as nervous as the day I had to point to places on the dissected grasshopper and name them. It was a big portion of our grade and we had to perform the test, one by one, with the teacher at the front of the class. My hands turned to water. My fingers turned into Sonicaire toothbrushes, vibrating at the tips so I could get no accuracy with my pointer. I thank god all this information we were being taught turned out to be completely useless because I could not wrap my head around grasshopper internal organ terminology back then! After a few unsuccessful attempts to point to a part or two, with my hands shaking and the obvious tension in my voice, this same teacher just asked me if I “knew” the material. I replied, “Yes. Of course.” And he took my word and I passed. To this day, I can’t decide if he was being considerate or impatient. But like I said, it didn’t really matter either way.

I fear that proving Krusty wrong is going to be a short section considering that I am nearly always right. Now a column titled proving the captive lion wrong has a nice ring to it. There is some serious material there.

On a side note I do appreciate this large of a comment section focusing on me. It feeds my pride and I always want that. In closing I say to all of you that I stand by my rock solid mental image of not going on this field trip. I refuse to listen to any arguments but my own. Peace Out.