The summer before I was going to be a sophomore in college I took a biology class at a community college because, I said, I wanted to get the out of the way. The real reason was that I couldn’t have passed it anywhere else.
These were the class’ two parts: (a.) the lab section and (b.) the class section. The class section wasn’t bad because the questions on the test were multiple choice.
I could do that.
Students sat in the back of auditorium and weren’t sure how to act during a summer class that they knew they would pass if they just sat still and recognized bold-faced words.
That class part was in the afternoons. The lab section, however, was in the mornings in another building and ran by a teaching assistant who was too easy on everyone because when he asked students to do anything they got mad at him and he got mad back and he gave in or took away points. If he would have worn a suit rather than jean shorts and a polo, none of this would have happened.
Whenever we had to do a project, we’d split up into groups and in my group was a fat girl, a pretty girl and smart guy. As I remember, the fat girl liked me, the smart girl had a boyfriend and the smart guy would be described as nondescript if he were a building and a lazy author was describing him. One time, we had to dissect a pig fetus. We stood in front of the body like it was a dead person on top of a mountain and our expedition had run out of supplies. Then I looked beside me and everyone had backed up and, suddenly, I was the closest one to the pig fetus.
“Oh,” I said.
So I was going to be the one to cut into the pig fetus. The worst part was not how you had to tie it down even though it was slippery and reeking of formaldehyde (which, if you didn’t know, smells like the ash from burnt sailor tendons sprinkled over circuitry). The worst part was when I pulled apart the pig fetus rib cage and it made a crack.
Because I had a few hours between lab and class, I thought I should read. So I read Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. It was the first Vonnegut I had read since Slaughterhouse-Five in 9th grade.
I liked Timequake because how it moved and talked and turned itself over. Vonnegut made me laugh because he was flippant and sincere.
I finished it pretty quick, re-read Slaughterhouse-Five and thought about the house where Billy Pilgrim lived and how he rolled off of his fat wife after having an orgasm and giving a squeak. I thought about how helpless he felt.
My biology class teacher was an almost-old man who provided all the notes online so I didn’t take any. I felt like I should have, though, because “what if?…”
But no one cared about what the professor said, because, if they did, they obviously would not be taking this class. One day, he tried to engage us by talking about health myths, one of them being about was how people thought taking Vitamin C helped you get better and prevent colds.
There is no evidence to support this, he said. It is an urban legend.
I sat up. An urban legend? But this is what my dad believed this. He had a big bottle of Vitamin C in the kitchen cabinet. Sure, it wasn’t magic, but it sure helped “if you take one of these when…”
I worked hard in the classes. I worked hard even though it was difficult to concentrate. I wanted to smoke a lot, because it was something to do. During class breaks, I stood with the other smokers and they didn’t mind if I listened to them talk.
I also had a hard time concentrating because I was taking Hydroxycut, which is an appetite suppressant/TV wonder drug. It didn’t help me lose weight unfortunately because I was taking other medication that wouldn’t let me. It did make me jittery, though. The back of my legs were tense.
At the end of six weeks, I had two B’s. I don’t remember what I did for the rest of the summer, though. I know I freelanced a little bit, felt sorry for myself a lot. The floor in my living room is wood, and that felt nice with the air conditioning on.
