Last week, I was talking to one of my classmates who has a tendency to arrive a minute or two after the class officially starts. I complained that he has an extra cushion to show up since his last name starts with an S, whereas mine starts with B. (When your last name is Bakken, you’re always gonna be near the top of the list for roll call.) I decided it was time for a little equality, so I bet him a nickel that the professor would take attendance in reverse for the next class. Not only did he accept my bet, he said he’d give me a whole five pennies instead of a nickel. How could I turn that down?
After class, I told the professor about our bet and asked if she’d help. She burst out laughing and agreed to earn me a little money. Her words: “I’d do anything for you!” (I figured I’d stick with helping me with the bet… for now…) She even wrote on the class list for our next class, “In reverse.”
As promised, she went though attendance going from Z to A. (My classmate didn’t get to appreciate my victory—he got to class after the prof had gone through the class list. I was starting to worry that he wouldn’t show up at all, willing to accept an absence just to avoid having to pay up.) When he got there… no pennies. De-nied! But he said he’d pay me next class and the prof said she’d hold him to it. (Anything for me…)
She even took it a step further and went through attendance in reverse for the next class as well. Unfortunately, my classmate was holding out on me. Sure, he said he left the pennies in his car, but I knew the punk was holding out on me. “Next class, I’ll have them for you.”
Finally, he paid up today, but not the way he said he would. Instead of my five pennies, he asked if I had a nickel since all he had was a dime. Sounded a little sketchy, but I wanted the money I had earned, so I grabbed a nickel for him. Then he decided to “pay me interest”, which entailed reaching into his pocket and pulling out some lint to include with the dime. I warned him that if he gave me the lint, “I’ll snot on the nickel.” He didn’t drop the lint, so I held the nickel up to one nostril, closed the other with my finger, then blew out just a tiny bit.
Oddly enough, he didn’t want the nickel after that. He just handed me the dime (without the lint) and that was it. Sure, it wasn’t five pennies, but it was twice the amount of the original bet. I told him he had paid his debts and I wouldn’t need the prof to come to the back of the room and slap him around with the attendance sheet. I eventually invested the money earlier this afternoon, using it to buy 1/15 of a bottle of Mountain Dew with my lunch. Hey, I needed something to help replace the fluids I used to snot onto the nickel…
Hehehehe… this reminds me of the joke about the teacher who, having a “B” name herself, always hated it when she was in school and her teachers would assign order of presentations alphabetically. Determined to do it differently, she told her class that she’d either go in reverse alphabetical order, or in alphabetical order by first name.
From the back of the class came a moan: “I just can’t win. My name is Andrew Zayle!”
There are times when I’m so embarrassed to be related to you…..
Seriously.
Dude…..
(ewwwww)