A few years ago I was a doctoral student completing coursework. Since I was commuting almost two hours, one-way, to Toronto I tried to concentrate as many classes as possible in a day to minimize the number of trips I would have to make each week. During this time there was a stretch where I was dog sick with whatever virus was making the rounds. But I had two seminar style tutorials that I didn’t want to miss so I dragged myself into U of T. Falling behind was the kiss of death because I knew I would never find the time to get caught up.
On one particular day I must have looked and sounded pretty awful because when I walked into the small group room the professor stopped whatever he was doing and asked me why I had even bothered to get out of bed. I mentioned that I had an additional class that day and I didn’t want to miss any content. I didn’t bother explaining the falling behind and kiss-of-death stuff.
Now here’s where it gets funny in my opinion.
The prof looked up from his book and said, “ah, you must be here for good sex”. I swear that is, word for word, what he said. Now I know my brain was addled with virus and drugs, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the heck he meant by that. I am sure I sat there dumbfounded for a few beats. I had already taken several classes with this professor so I knew he was scrupulously professional and meant nothing inappropriate. But what on earth was he talking about?????
As an aside, I shared this blog post with a few friends before posting and they all had MUCH better responses for that question than I would have ever pulled out of my hat.
It took me a several seconds to figure out that he assumed, that in addition to his class, I had also come in to U of T to attend the class called “Good Sex: Advanced Studies in Sexual Ethics”, routinely abbreviated to “Good Sex”.
“Ah, no”, I said. “Not Good Sex, but Spirituality and Suffering”.
At that moment the unspoken thought in my head was “Damn, if that isn’t an apt comment some days”. I am sure many extreme caregivers can relate.
