2.10.2009

Kooky Professors


Speaking of kooky poli sci professors and sitting in the front of class, I remember a favorite story from my days at CSUN years ago. My dad, see, was a poli sci prof while I was a coed there. I took two of his classes. Naturally. He was a great prof. No, really, he was. I can remember around registration time, you could hear whispers in the hallways of the poli sci department: Take Beller, he's the best. So, yes, I took his class. We secretly agreed to change my last name for the class, and none of the students knew my undercover identity.

Those were my triathlon days, and my boyfriend and I rode our bikes to campus. I swam at school. One semester I took Poli Sci 156, and swam before class. The chlorine from the pool always made my nose run terribly. It was so annoying, that watery distraction tickling my upper lip, as I would sit in rapt attention to Dr. Beller's colorfully animated lectures, sucking up his profound wisdom like a dry loofah.

At the end of every week, we would always take our suits home to wash the chlorine out. I always wrapped mine in my scratchy white gym towel, and carried it with me tied to my backpack until I got home. During one lecture, my runny nose was particularly pestilent. I was sniffling and snorting and it wasn't doing any good; the water was running like a busted faucet. It was so annoying. Still, I refused to budge from my front-row perch to escape to the hallway, where I might blow the chloriney liquid away for good. Unable to control the leaky Kohler that was my nose, I desperately grabbed my towel and wiped, thus averting a disastrous scene.

That was it. Silly me. Dr. Beller--Dad--in a great show of drama, stopped his lecture mid-sentence, his emphatically gesturing arms suddenly frozen. He made a dramatic, sweeping motion to turn and glare at me. "Good god!" he exclaimed incredulously. "Did you just wipe your nose with that towel?!"

I stared back at him, stunned, my face turning a hot shade of burgundy. The entire class gasped in unison, horrified. "Ohhh! Dr. Bellerrrrr!" they cried. How mean!

I got an "A" in class. And no, I didn't cheat. It was all scan-trons.

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