1. Scary When Overcaffeinated

Me: [To students this spring] I'm telling ya! It's going to be a veritable clusterfuck of poetry goodness!

* * *

2. At Spring Commencement

Me: [Whispering to S.] Wait a minute. You're kidding me. Are all the dental hygienists actually wearing a white construction paper tooth affixed to the button of their mortar boards?

S: [Without missing a beat] I guess it's a good thing we don't have a School of Proctology.

Me: Snort. Snorfle. Hee. Hee hee hee hee!

[At which point I am rather ignominiously shushed by a Professor Emeritus sitting in the row in front of us.]

* * *

3. Tour de Force

S: What was the name of that speaker who came and spoke on [X] two years ago?

Me: Oh, crap. I know exactly who you mean, but I can't remember the name. Now it's going to bother me. [Squinching face and knocking on side of head.] Wait, wait. Don’t tell me. Was it [Y]?

S: [Squinching face and waving arms about like windmills] Nope. That’s not it. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You know I’m terrible with names.

Me: Crap.

S: [Yelling triumphantly] It was [Z]!!!

Me: OMG, you’re right! That’s amazing! That’s exactly it!

S: Can you believe I actually managed to retrieve a proper name and pull it out of my ass like that?

Me: No, that was amazing. It was a tour de force. An outright Mnemonic Colonoscopy!

* * *

4. Fourth of July

E: [Being an incredibly Good Sport after an Incendiary Explosive Device deployed on her front driveway by three ten-year-old boys and her husband rather flamboyantly ricocheted into one of her trees in an exciting sprezzatura of sparks] Oh, well . . . [weakly]. Tree Tree.

Me: So is that like the WASP equivalent of Tree Schmee?

"It's going to be a veritable clusterfuck of poetry goodness!"

Morning coffee up the nose snorting laughter at this one. You should include that in your course descriptions.

Dr. M., I think that would be an excellent addition to my course descriptions!