Friday Fiction: Professor K Strikes Again

I acually had a professor like this! He was fun and frustrating at the same time. For more great fiction, go to Dorinda's Treasures in Jars of Clay blog.

Professor K Strikes Again by Dee Yoder

My name is Mort. And when I say Mort, I mean MORT. I wear a purple lab coat and a sequined bow tie that spins and lights up when I press a hidden button. I’ve had some spectacular life experiences. Indeed, I could fill a book with them, but I’ll only share a few choice moments.

Building things is my hobby. I built a plane once using the Popular Mechanics article, “Build Your Own Solo Plane in Two Weekends.” It took me two months to accumulate the stuff, and then another month to convince my wife to let me tackle another secret project, but oh doggie, once I got started, it was a “cinch-arino”.

I worked nonstop on that cool baby for three months, but just when my wife was starting to get mean about my hobby, I surprised her with my announcement that the marvelous machine was ready to F-L-Y!

When she laid eyes on my perfected project, a look of wonder, then bewilderment, and finally amusement, spread over her face.

“Mort…you built a plane!”

“Yessirree Bob, and it’s a dandy, isn’t it?” I proclaimed proudly.

“But…Mort! It’s in the basement, for crying out loud!”

“Yeah! Um…uh-oh. Oooh…yeah.” That was a bummer realization. I deflated like last week’s birthday balloon.

Hmm…had to get it out of the basement…righto. My wife watched me in silence for a second, shook her head, and went chuckling upstairs to finish dinner. Took me two months more to take it apart and put it together again in the barn, but what a beauty!

I love my students. They tickle my funny bone with their silly questions and their serious faces. They seem to appreciate me, too. For instance, today I wrote the entire genetic plan of the red-eyed, vestigial-winged fruit fly on the chalkboards. The entire time I was scribbling out the charts, my rolling commentary kept the class howling like banshees. I never dreamed Genetics could be so humorous to them. Weird though, when I got to the end of the third board, the chart was totally wrong. Tom pointed out to me the source of my tiny error. Seems I switched the F1 parents with the F2 offspring way back on board one. Oh well. A little erasing and an hour later, the charts were complete and accurate. Too bad the class ended before I finished the F5’s.

Just before I went home, one of my students needed to come in and do a make-up lab. I told her I’d be happy to help her out. I proceeded to carefully place Professor Beech’s bounteous and beloved beaker over the Bunsen burner. My student turned out to be cautious and observant. Very astute.

“Uh, Professor K?”

“Yes?”

“That beaker doesn’t have a Pyrex seal on the side; are you sure it’s flame safe?”

“Oh, sure, all beakers are-oops. I guess I’m going to owe Professor Beech a new bounteous beaker.”

Yessirree Bob! An ace student, for sure. She did a wonderful job helping me mop up the mess.

My favorite class is Anatomy and Physiology. The day we went to collect animal parts from the farm down the road was a glorious example of higher education. It was a happy “co-ink-a-dink”, too, that spaghetti with meat sauce was on the menu in the cafeteria. What a great way to learn where our food comes from!

I want my students to handle the merchandise, so to speak, and enjoy the natural beauty of God’s creation. I often encourage them to “get their hands in there and learn, learn, learn!” Too bad so many were squeamish that day; they missed out on observing the beautiful cerulean color of the vitreous matter of the cow’s eye. It was gorgeous!

The Anatomy class gives me the chance to exploit my favorite joke of all time. When the students come in the door, I say, “Welcome to Mort’s Mortuary! You stab ‘em, we slab ‘em!” They love that. And it’s an apropos introduction to the “Picking Up Road Kill for Further Study” lesson. Too bad the class is right after lunch. Some students don’t seem to take my little joke well; I think the carbs are a detriment to their learning experience. Makes them sluggish and pale.

That reminds me; I wonder why Brenda Bradley turned green and ran out of class yesterday? I hope she doesn’t have the flu. I’d sure hate to have her miss the “Picking Apart Your Formaldehyde-Preserved Dog Fish Shark” lesson.