All the Children Were Above Average
One time a student of mine earned a B. He wanted to go to Yale; his mother and he believed his life would be ruined if he didn’t go to Yale. The two of them sat in my classroom and cried. “This is a disaster,” his mother said. “No,” I said, “a disaster is when your son steps on a landmine and loses both of his legs. This is just a B.”
Another time a father called to tell me his son had never earned anything less than an A. “There’s always a first time,” I said. He called me again. I told him to talk to my boss. He just kept yakking. I hung up on him.
Then there was the lady who thought she was a pitbull. She got her teeth into my flesh, and wouldn’t let go. This was over an A- instead of an A. She wanted to bargain, trade a grade from a previous quiz for a future consideration. Like a baseball trade. Relentless, she sent a dozen e-mails in as many hours. Next morning, I opened an e-mail from her husband. “I was staying out of this,” he wrote, “But now you’ve insulted my wife.” I sent the whole long e-mail chain to my boss, “You’re in charge,” I said, “This is way above my pay grade.” The kid was my advisee; he and his parents never spoke to me again. I took that as a blessing.
A Humorless Profession
As I’ve grown older, I’ve needed general anesthetic, or at least heavy sedation, ever more often: prostate surgery, cataracts, a hernia, and of course, colonoscopies like clockwork every three years since I was fifty-five because they’re always finding polyps.
And every time the anesthetist sticks the needle in, I always say, “I don’t care if I expire on the table because I’ll never know the difference if I do. Lots worse ways to die.”
They never laugh. They always look as if they’ve swallowed a goldfish live.
And when I come around, I always say, “Your lucky day. I didn’t die this time.” Like telling a Polish joke in Warsaw. Like farting at a First Communion.
W.D. Ehrhart’s most recent collections are Thank You for Your Service: Collected Poems (McFarland, 2019) and Wolves in Winter (Between Shadows Press, 2021). His website is www.wdehrhart.com.