Jesus Saved Me… from Getting Kicked Out of Community College

Children’s Literature is the last course I ever imagined I’d take.  Yet there I was, analyzing Curious George in my last semester of community college.  I was working full time at one job, going to school 3 nights a week and there weren’t any night other options to fulfill the English requirement.  I was still ashamed. I think the point of the class was to discuss different children’s books and their values.  Most of the kids in the class seemed to have taken the course because they actually liked children’s books.

One Wednesday night, we all showed up for class.  This one kid sits behind me in his usual spot.  Class starts, then the kid starts silently puking into his backpack.  I’m not sure what alerted me to this.  It may have been the smell, or maybe it was the reactions of the kids who could actually see what was happening.  Class came to a hault.  The kid started crying.  Apparently he lost his job at Footlocker at the mall which prompted him to go to the local mall bar “Maggies” and drink away his sorrows.  He was such a responsible guy that he just couldn’t miss class, so he decided to drive drunk 40 minutes to the college. In the end I think he ended up throwing away the backpack and one of the old ladies in class called his parents to pick him up.  Then they bought him a six hour old wilted hoagie from the cafeteria and made him eat it to soak up the alcohol while they sat there watching him wait for his parents.

The teacher was such a pushover that this all went down without incident.  You could basically get away with anything.  One class she was rambling on and on about the merits of one children’s author or another.  I don’t even know what she was saying.  Whatever it was it was getting on my nerves and seemed a waste of my time.  I involuntarily exclaimed “JESUS CHRIST!” right in the middle of class. I’m pretty sure this offended her because she stopped and asked what I said.  I basically just brushed it off and said “We’re very religions back here, very religious.”

If I had yelled out anything else, I’m pretty sure even though she was pretty lenient, I would have been kicked out.  Good old Jesus.  He really does save.

Photo By: Toe Fu