(The professor is talking about Black History. She brings up the point that no matter how much a white racist might say “black people are privileged,” they would never willingly switch places with the black person. Somewhere under their lies, they know that black people have it worse. The professor says that she, a white person, would never want to switch places with a black person because she knows how bad racism is. She asks if we would do the switch. No one raises their hand. Then, the professor completely jumps tracks to talk about fatphobia and how awful it is. She asks us the same kind of question: would anyone willingly gain 100 pounds? 200? One stick-thin girl raises her hand.)

Professor: “Why, [Student]?”

Student: “Because I want the weight. And to eat.”

Professor: “[Student], anorexia is a serious thing. It’s downright awful. But we have to deal with it, too. In fact, more fat people have eating disorders than skinny people. And we are encouraged to keep these eating disorders; you get help. People fall over themselves trying to get you the mental help you need. A fat person–“

(The girl starts full-on sobbing, in the mental-breakdown kind of way.)

Student: *between sobs* “I don’t… have… and they… they won’t… My stomach won’t let me eat. My intestines won’t let me digest. And the doctors… They say the same thing as you! They look at me and decide I’m anorexic before they even know me! They just tell me to eat more. They won’t help me… They just send me to therapy… and call me crazy… and no one will run the tests I need… They think if I just eat more, I’ll be fixed… I wish I was fat… so at least I’d have more to lose before I died…”

(The professor stopped saying stupid s*** after that.)

(I major in Latin and Ancient Greek. There are only three people in the class, and as a result, we know each other well and joke a lot. At this point, we have a student teacher who is being supervised by our regular teacher. We are still getting used to the student teacher, and he is still getting used to us, as we are his first class. We are declining Greek nouns at the blackboard from memory, and I accidentally mess up the order of them:)

Student Teacher: *to me* “Do you remember the correct order?”

Me: “No. Otherwise, I would have done it right.”

(I didn’t mean to say it out loud. Everyone laughed, including the student teacher and me. Things were much less awkward afterward.)

Related:
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 5
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 4
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 3
Ask A Stupid Question…, Part 2
Ask A Stupid Question…

(I’m a junior in college, and I work at the bookstore. It’s the first week of classes, known as “fall rush,” and we are swamped. To help streamline this, we offer online ordering, where a student inputs their classes and we collect the books for them to pick up in store. There are three or four of us doing that, while everyone else is on the sales floor. Our store manager has told those of us who are working on these to direct questions from customers to someone else on the sales floor, so that we can focus on the task at hand. I’m working on one of these when I hear a throat clear behind me. There’s an older man glaring at me.)

Me: “Hello! What can I help you with?”

Man: “I’m Dr. [Man], and I teach [course I’ve never heard of]. Now, the textbooks for my class are usually right here. But they’re not here. Why is that? Where are my books?”

Me: “I’m really not sure, sir. But I can go grab our textbook manager and she can help you–”

Man: “No, I don’t want to talk to someone else. I want you to find my books now.”

(I see our textbook manager across the store, so I wave her over.)

Me: “Sir, I’m not familiar with your course or textbooks, but–”

Man: “You should be familiar with my course! It’s very important!”

Me: “Sir, I do apologize, but I’m running online orders right now. But our textbook manager–”

Man: “NO! You will help me!”

Textbook Manager: “No, sir, I will help you. Now, you said the book was for [Class]?”

Man: *huffs* “Millennials.” *glares at me* “I hope you never take one of my classes.”

Me: “Don’t worry; I won’t.”

Man: “EXCUSE ME?!”

Textbook Manager: “That’s it. Your course textbooks are over there.” *points* “Now, stop hassling my employees and leave.”

(The old man walks out, muttering to himself.)

Textbook Manager: “Why don’t you finish that order and go to lunch?”

Me: “Thank you!”

(I graduated from college several years ago, but that bookstore job is still my favorite!)

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(I’m taking a masters-level teaching course the summer before I start my first teaching job. The professor instructs us to bring six stamped postcards to the next class.)

Professor: “I want everyone to write six encouraging messages to yourself for different times throughout the school year. Think of the challenges you’re going to face at specific times and write yourself a note of encouragement. Then, write the dates you’d like me to mail them on the postcards and I’ll send them to you throughout the year.”

(I thought this was lame, but nonetheless, I tried. I wrote encouraging messages to myself for the first day of school, after the first month of school, Christmas break, the end of the year, etc. In December, I received every postcard in the mail on the same day. She’d apparently just mailed them all at once.)

I studied medical laboratory science in college. As we were studying hormones, we came to hCG, which is the hormone tested for on a pregnancy test. The professor was explaining how, at the very end of a pregnancy, hCG levels can drop off, yielding a negative pregnancy test on an obviously pregnant patient.

Then, he added this gem: “You can really freak out nervous medical interns by calling them up and telling them the pregnancy test on a very pregnant woman is negative. I’m not saying I’ve done it, but I’m not saying I haven’t.”