yesterday in a class discussion, one of my students began a sentence with "The other day in my car I had a used condom..."

and i thought, there is no way in the world this is going to take the class in the direction i was hoping.

but he kept going, "...and I wanted to get rid of it, so I tossed it up through the open sunroof as I was driving along..."

and I thought, oh shit, how am I going to rescue us. a girl sitting next to him, a friend of his i think, put her face in her hands.

then he continued, "...and as it went up, this great white..."

fuck, fuck, fuck, i thought.

"...owl came out of nowhere, grabbed it, and took off. I couldn't believe it, a great white owl took my used condom."

i was thinking.

"So," he concluded, "maybe somewhere out there I have a bunch of great white owl babies. That would be so cool."

i nodded my head.