Nine A.M. classes were always the worst. The absolute pits; an ungodly early hour to have to learn something. My sophomore year, I started my day with a Basic Anthropology class. On one particular day, I remember sliding into the lecture hall about 3 minutes late and grabbing the last available desk, as all the other 200 or so chairs were taken. After the inevitable butt-chewing from the professor in front of the whole hall on the subject of my tardiness, we got down to the serious business of learning.
Dr. Brown started in on his lecture and as usual, my eyes started to droop. Late nights of studying and the college kid’s all consuming need to sleep were very hard to overcome. As the class dragged on and the good Doctor droned forth, I found it harder and harder to focus. The buzz of the projector, the scribble of pens and the gentle hum of the fluorescent lights lulled me into a state of zen note-taking, monotonous and mindless…until it was shattered by a sudden CRACK!
Snapped out of my dozy trance, I bolted upright in my chair and looked around for the source of the disturbance. The other two hundred students did, too.
“Whoa! What was THAT?” I thought. “That was LOUD! Did someone drop a book? Slam a door? I wonder what… Oh! Ow! Ow ow ow!! Why does my forehead hurt so much all of a sudden?!”
As my classmates’ eyes all focused on my side of the room, I realized with dread that the sharp crack everyone heard was my forehead hitting my desk because I fell asleep and keeled over. With the whole class staring, the professor laughing and my head throbbing, I succumbed to my mounting mortification and, grabbing my bag, I fled.
I sought refuge in a top-floor bathroom and discovered a goose egg the size of a quarter forming on my forehead. It was probably the most embarrassing moment I’d ever had, but after another missed class and a further week of hat-wearing, life was back to normal.
It’s a random thing to post, but the memory came back to me today when a guy fell asleep in a meeting right after lunch. He was leaning back in his chair and it tipped over against the wall when he dozed off. Unfortunately, it was in front of a lot of VIP’s. I’m glad it wasn’t me, but I can totally feel his pain, literally.
