Unstoppable Moron Meets Unmovable Idiot

When an Unstoppable Moron Meets an Unmovable Idiot

By: Cherrychunga

READ AT YOUR OWN RISK; SAFETY GOGGLES WILL NOT BE PROVIDED

As Nico stared at the chalk board in front of him, he couldn't help but think of a hoard of writhing snakes slithering across its surface. Actually, his thought was not far from the truth; the board was covered with so many equations, homework assignments, and big-lettered notes from the sycophantic girls that sat in the back of the class (Mrs. Herod is R #1 teacher! ) that all the intersecting lines could be confused for snakes, if you were to blur your eyes.

Nico's eyes followed the path of one of the snakes and watched as it slithered past free-body diagrams and kinematics equations (he was in Physics class) and looped about the "" in "Mrs. Herod is R #1 teacher! " only to be smothered by Mrs. Herod's finger.

Much like the board, Nico felt that Mrs. Herod was in desperate need of a cleaning. Her hands were old and leathery and artificially-tanned, the latter-most of these attributes causing her veins to stick out like pulsing worms. Her brown-grey hair was usually stringy, but a recent attempt to tame it with hair conditioner had caused it to look somewhat like a helmet. Artificially-tanned skin pouches hung from her neck and cushioned her black, beady eyes. Her short, stubby, brown finger was pointing to an equation for pressure, among other things.

"Yesterday," Mrs. Herod said in a surprisingly sweet voice that did not match her appearance, "we learned about pressure."

Yesterday was Sunday.

Nico, however, decided to question Mrs. Herod on an even more puzzling claim she just made. Yesterday--that is, Friday--they had learned about torque, which had just about as much to do with pressure as an elephant did an amoeba. Nico raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Ma'am, we learned about torque on Friday. What does pressure have to do with torque?"

For a fraction of a second, Nico was sure he saw the corner of Mrs. Herod's heavily-lipsticked mouth twitch. Her voice, however, maintained the sweet tone with which she started the class. "The principles are the same," she said.

"In the way the principles of an elephant and amoeba are the same!" he shot back.

"Correct," Mrs. Herod said with her eyes closed, so as to accent her matter-of-fact tone, "An elephant and amoeba are both living, and pressure and torque are both parts of Physics."

Taking advantage of Nico's temporary confusion as he tried to comprehend Mrs. Herod's argument, she turned to the class and said, "Now, as I said yesterday the quotient of force divided by area--"

"That correlation is weak!" said Nico, finally managing to describe why he found Mrs. Herod's argument so unsettling.

"--of course we will be using Pascals for units, unlike last year's Chemistry class, where you used mmHg or torr," continued Mrs. Herod as sweetly as ever, as if Nico had not said anything. Her finger still sat on the same place on the board, and, under it, was the equation for pressure (along with the equation for velocity and a crude picture of Brett Farve riding a unicorn). The problem: Mrs. Herod had skipped the chapter on velocity, so Nico didn't know what equation she was referring to.

Smudging Brett Farve's face in the process, Mrs. Herod ran her finger to another sector of the chalk-coated board. "This is your homework. You have the rest of the class to complete it. Enjoy!" As she said this, she tapped her hideous finger on several clusters of numbers and a vitruvian man. Which set of numbers from that cluster am I supposed to do?, thought Nico along with several classmates. Again, Nico raised his hand.

"Which set of numbers am I supposed to do?" Nico left out cluster; it seemed rude.

"You'll know when the homework is scored," Mrs. Herod said, her voice now edged in its sweetness. "If you get zero points, you did the wrong homework."

"But by then we'll have lost the points!"

"Good point," she consented. "I'll tell you the assignment the day that it is due. That way, you'll know ahead of time."

With a resigned sigh, Nico rummaged through his bag and pulled out his Physics book, creatively titled College Physics for People who Aren't in College, Now with 20% more Stuff Online that No One will Ever Use! He hoped that the straightforward logic of science would ease his troubled brain.

He had no such luck.

After fifteen minutes of thinking of a solution to problem one and finding nothing, he asked the student sitting beside him if he had any idea of how to solve the problem. He did not; he had decided to doodle pictures of Brett Farve instead of think of solutions to problem one. When no one else sitting around him seemed to have an answer, Nico figured that Mrs. Herod was the only one who could help him. For the third time today, Nico raised his hand.

"My daughter was so nervous when she went in for her audition," Mrs. Herod said around the time Nico raised his hand. "Of course she had lessons, but--" She stopped short when she saw Nico's hand. In a steely voice, she said, "Yes?"

"Could you help me with problem one?" Nico crossed his fingers under his desk. If he had asked for a question from the wrong assignment, then he would have interrupted a story about Mrs. Herod's daughter for nothing, and anyone who interrupted a story about Mrs. Herod's daughter for nothing could expect Hell.

Luckily, Nico was spared the jaws of the internal inferno and the burn of the sulfurous lake, as Mrs. Herod said (rather curtly), "Multiply area by Pascals."

Despite being spared from Mrs.Herod's inferno, Nico felt an inferno building up inside of himself. He struggled to smile as he said, "That really doesn't help. Why am I doing this? And what is a Pascal?"

Mrs. Herod remained curt. "As to the why: you're doing it to find the answer. We talked about Pascals yesterday; you should know what they are."

Nico spit sulfur at Mrs. Herod. "Yesterday was Sunday, and the last thing you 'taught' us was torque!"

"The principles are the same."

The bell rang. All the students, save Nico, collected their bags and shuffled to the door, most of them taking a long time because they weren't jolted awake until the last chime of the bell. Nico stood up and stared at his teacher. He knew it was infantile, but as the students left, he entered into a staring contest with Mrs. Herod. His hatred burned at her, and every blink of her eye was little victory for Nico, invigorating him for what he was about to do.

"You're the worst teacher ever!"

Mrs. Herod was taken aback, but when she spoke, her tone remained calm, which angered Nico. "You're most certainly entitled to your opinion, however wrong it may be."

Nico was done. He didn't care who heard him anymore. He didn't care if the principle expelled him. He dropped his voice low and said, "Does it still count as opinion if it's fact?"

Now it was Mrs. Herod's turn to explode. "That is enough! I do not care for your tone! You've disrespected me all day, and I am sick of it!"

Almost as if they had exchanged voices, Nico's voice took on a sweet element in his reply. "That doesn't mean I'm wrong. Because of you, I'm having trouble getting into college--a report card with all A's and an F is hard to explain, you know? Look: Since day one, you've tested about things you've never taught and have changed the lesson plan every day. Children's future's should not be in your hands. I recommend resigning."

Mrs. Herod simply smiled. "That's how Physics is supposed to be taught."

"What!?"

"You look: Who has a degree in Physics?"

"You."

"And who has an F in Physics class?"

"Me."

"Is it not conceivable, then, that I know more about Physics?"

Nico had to chew on that statement for awhile, and, as he did, he felt a pit growing in his stomach. The logic before him was infallible. What if he was just too stupid to understand Physics? The more he thought about it, the more he thought Mrs. Herod was right, and the more he thought Mrs. Herod was right, the hotter his face became. Oh! he thought, and imagine how dim I must look talking about things I can't even understand. An apology, Nico knew, was the only way to save face. With a sigh, he said, "You're right. I'm sorry. Sometimes I just get worked up. I promise to let you do your job, even if I can't understand it."

"That's all right. Now, get to class! You don't want to be late, do you?" Red as a beet, Nico scuttled from the room.

Mrs. Herod reclined at her desk, a contented smile on her face.

FIN

Author's Note: This is my first story! Like it? Yay! Tell me why in a review. Hate it? Yay! Tell me why in a review. Also, please note that I have no ill feelings towards students or teachers. This is a comedy story and nothing more.