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My high school biology class was a wealth of valuable information that I have never forgotten.
During my junior year of high school, my biology teacher got shingles and had to miss like a month of class because his skin looked like a prolapsed asshole. Anyway, the assistant football coach, Coach G., had to fill in as our substitute. He looked like a worse version of Guy Fieri.
Earlier that year, in gym class, I had to shelter in place with Coach G. because of a mercury spill in the hallway. He passed the time by forcing me to wear full football pads and suplexing me into the lockers. He smelled like an old cigar covered in cheese.
During our first class, he said that he didn’t know anything about biology except how to inflict pain on the human body because he was training to become a professional wrestler. He demonstrated the Sharpshooter submission hold on the janitor. His voice sounded like a failing diesel engine.
During our second class, he told us what he knew about evolution. Basically, he said, guys get horny when they are hungover because their bodies think they are dying. Evolution has programmed them to want to procreate before they pass away. The key, he said, was to drink a glass of pickle juice right before you go to bed after a heavy night of drinking. His hands looked like rotten pork chops. They shook violently when he tried to write with the chalk.
During our third class, we dissected a frog. He sweated through his short sleeve button down and cleared his throat constantly. He told the nerdiest kid in class he’d give him an automatic A if he ate the frog guts. The nerdy kid wouldn’t do it, so Coach G. did it himself. Amy Calabrese started dry heaving and asked to be excused.
During our fourth class, I had stopped listening somewhere in the middle of our lesson about rabbit anatomy. Interestingly, Coach G. said, his uncle had recently been featured in a History Channel documentary about JFK. The uncle apparently collected stuffed animals of celebrities from when they were young and had, with much effort, acquired Lee Harvey Oswald’s beloved Cuddle Bunny at auction. I’m not sure why that was relevant.
Offended that I was whispering across the lab table to my friends, Coach G. called me out. If I didn’t stop, he threatened, I would have to go to the office for insubordination.
“If you can spell insubordination on the blackboard in front of everyone, I’ll go to the office right now,” I said.
I never went to the office, but Coach G. went to jail for buying a case of Mike's Hard Lemonade for the offensive linemen to bring to a homecoming party.
During our fifth class, we had a different substitute who showed us a movie about dominant and recessive alleles. I learned that green eyes are recessive to brown but dominant to blue.
Fascinating, right?