On Emotional Affinity with a Banana Peel

One day this semester, I was especially overcome by the multi-layered stupidity of my students. It was as though the problem was even worse than, say, their parents being siblings and creating the intellectual equivalent of a tree stump.

No, this was deep-to-the-bone stupidity. The kind you get only from some magical force. Like the parent breeding with a mud clod. And not even a smart mud clod. A misshapen one, with crooked glasses and a wonky eye and the compulsion to repeat phrases like "crowbar, crowbar" and "cat piss soup."

When I left class that day, I was so determined not to run into any more students that I sneaked out the back way of the building, down the cement stairwell between the dumpsters and the piles of discarded PVC pipe. I would make it safely to my car without having to interact even one more second with students who could not, after fourteen explanations, grasp the idea of a thesis sentence.

As I stealthily descended the stairs, I looked down and saw this banana peel. It spoke to me. Not out loud, of course. But it said "I am feeling dejected. Abandoned by all that is good. Done in. And you?"

Yes, yes, I said. I am the same.

When I got home I told Scott about the sudden and unexpected connection to the banana peel, and I also told him that if that banana peel was still there on the step tomorrow, I was bringing it home to take a picture of it with his camera. (I have not been able to locate my digital camera since the move west. Or threats like this one would never arise. I could've just taken its picture right then.) After the photo study of poor Lizzie the dessicated lizard, he knew I was serious.

The next day, armed with a plastic Walmart bag, I went down those steps after class, certain that my sad little friend would have vamoosed since our first meeting.

He was there.

And so, the universe spoke to me again.

Yes, Candy, it said. You're now carrying home rotten shit in a Walmart bag, and that's about one step away from living on the street, wearing a torn petticoat and some twigs in your hair and calling out in the night for your lover, Ross Perot.

But occasionally the universe is a poignantly ringing bell, and you must listen to its peels.