My high school was a new high school.  My sister (who is five years older than me) was in its first graduating class.

So we also had a lot of younger teachers.  They were good teachers – just young.

And as we got older, some of us students even became friends with those teachers – because they weren’t all that much older than us.

My senior year, I took chemistry.

Chemistry B, as opposed to Chemistry A.

I should have taken Chemistry A, but it conflicted with band, and since my folks had bought me my French horn, you best believe my fat butt was going to be sitting in band at the appointed time.

I really didn’t care much whether I was in Chemistry A or B.

Chemistry did not excite me.  It was just a class you were supposed to take.

We had two term papers due in Chemistry.  One after the winter break, and one at the end of the year.

I dutifully did and handed in my first term paper.

But, after class one day, the teacher pulled me aside and told me he had lost my paper, and would I be okay with just getting a “B”?

WTF?

But this was before the days of having the damn thing saved on a hard drive, so I took the “B”.

I probably could have argued him up, but, truth be told, I really didn’t much give a fuck.

Comes the end of the year … I do not do the second term paper at all, plus we had a set of questions we were supposed to take a week to answer – and I did that during the last Chemistry class of the year.

I don’t know what possessed me.

I was generally a good and diligent student.

But, Chemistry did not excite me and pretty much, I just had no more fucks left to give.

I was so done with high school.

However, I am sweating that final report card.

And it finally showed up and son-of-a-bitch, I got a B in Chemistry.

Huh?

(And whew – because my folks still had plenty of fucks to give if I didn’t get a good grade in something.)

All I could figure out was the teacher must have decided he lost my paper (again) and was too embarrassed to do anything about it – so he just gave me another B.

Fine by me.

Later, I heard that the teacher had been picked up for selling drugs.  (How Breaking Bad of him – he was clearly years ahead of his time.)

So now I’m also thinking, maybe he was just a stoner and that was why losing two term papers from the same student didn’t even seem to strike him as odd.  It was just another day for him.

Of course, this is all speculation.

I don’t even remember his name, but I sure as shit owe him a thank you for that B.