professors on drugs

I was just remembering something unsettling today...about a party I went to as an undergrad, where I saw one of my way-up-there-on-a-pedestal professors in a marijuana-induced torpor, lying on the ground in my friend's unfurnished apartment. What a let-down that was! It had been a simple party at a friend's house, but as the friend lived in graduate student housing, the party was crashed by pretty much everyone who lived within a mile radius. This professor guy was one of them. He had been my physics prof, and had lectured quite engagingly in front of a 300-seat auditorium. And he had made physics understandable. I thought he was so brilliant.

But alas; he crashed a party to which he was not invited; he brought his own weed (thank you very much); he proceeded to smoke it on the floor in full sight of everyone and then to pass out afterwards.

Another illusion shot to bits.

Among the other shocks was realizing that he wasn't really a professor at all. Probably he was just some homeless guy doing a visiting professor gig at UC Irvine. And that beard I thought was so niftily Berkeley-esque? Probably he just didn't own a razor.

And he smelled bad, too.

Anyway, suffice to say that all professors look much better from a distance. It's probably best not to look too hard.