in case you're wondering

I was right. I had a virus. While I'm not completely healed, today was much better than the previous three days.

Yes, I still have calculus. I dragged myself to class last night. Waited in the hallway with the other kids for the teacher to arrive. Was utterly surprised to hear them all talking about the quiz the teacher had announced a week ago. What? Quiz? Seriously? Tonight? You guys quit messing with me. I'm sick and old and this is not a thing to joke about. Wait. You are serious? Really, he said we were having a quiz? Crap. Or something like that. I am totally dead. I must have been so stunned by my unacceptably low quiz/test scores last week that I was checked out mentally when he was discussing his plan to give a quiz last night.

I've been in college for a long time now and I've been vaguely aware of some rule about how if the teacher doesn't show up after a certain number of minutes, class is canceled. That seems so bizarre to me but the other kids in every class seem to have it figured out.

I kept checking with the other kids last night--how many more minutes? Now? Can we leave now? Really, it's only been one minute since the last time I asked? Now? Are we there yet?

When we had but two minutes to go, I offered to take the class to dinner if everybody would just leave then, but you know how there's always one smartypants kid who doesn't want to leave because he's studied soooo hard (that's said in an extremely whiny voice)? And then the teacher showed up.

First thing he said was, "Did I say we were having a quiz tonight?" And whinykid said, "Yes" and most of the class echoed him and I said that I did not remember him saying that but apparently everybody else remembered. And he said (and this is why I adore this teacher in an appropriate student-teacher kind of way) "Let's wait until next week on that quiz."

And then we did calculus problems for the rest of the time. And guess what?


Wait for it.


I am every bit as good at calculus as any other kid in the class. Finally. I just had to study every waking minute. Which is what makes me the true smartypants in the class. Well that and most of my teachers are around my age and give me bonus points for trying so hard even with all of the rest of the insanity in my corner of the world. See, I was the only one who had finished the homework and practice test so I knew the questions I still had and for the first time in calculus class the world was right. I took back my rightful place as teacher's pet.

Score. Too bad so sad whinyvoice kid. But I'll still share cookies from Subway with you when I bring some to share with the class in a few weeks. See that--cookies from Subway--that is the secret to appropriate fellow classmate adoration between the other kids and me the crazy older woman. Cookies with huge doses of self-deprecation. While I'm swallowing down my A.