Peanuts and Biology

I’m in school right now, intensely confused about what it is I want to be when I grow up. I thought teaching would be fun, but teaching requires a measure of patience that some women were just not gifted in, and I happen to be the ring leader of that group of women. So my current course of study is headed in the direction of nursing. There is a side road, though, leading off the path of nursing that has been beckoning me and the voice screaming out my name is not one enticing me towards anything in particular, rather, its the voice of my biology teacher yelling her lungs out for me to get OFF her path of biology.

Anyways, I have a whole class with this beautifully screeching get-off-my-path voice instructing my every failing move, and tonight is the night of my second biology exam. My first biology exam ended with a bang; that bang was me hitting the floor as I fainted dead away after realizing my dismal failure in chemistry. Now I am the daughter of a genius. A very intelligently gifted chemist. A chemist who can’t, for the life of him, understand why I wasn’t born with the innate knowledge that if you mix X and A together you come up with D reaction and F product and QRS atomic number. A chemist who sadly shook his head when I dropped out of chemistry class in high school so I could take karate with the cute kid three lockers down from mine. A chemist who, I sometimes suspect, sleeps with his test tubes and periodic table snuggled under his pillow.

All day I crammed for this test, and in between I folded underwear and changed diapers and asked my three year old to stop climbing the refrigerator door three times. I actually studied more than I typically do for tests, meaning I didn’t just open the book, lean back in my chair, wipe my brow and say, “Whew I need some ice cream.” I still didn’t quite understand why some proteins were so much cooler than others or why they could do passive work while others did active work, but I did decide I had more passive proteins in my body than did most normal humans, and I was ok with that.

I called my dear husband around 3 in the afternoon to inform him that he would not be getting dinner from me, and graciously accepted his forced offer to get pizza. After inhaling way to many slices of pizza, still hoping by some miracle that the next wonder diet drug would include pizza ingredients and therefore my baby weight would magically diminish with each slice I ate, I pulled my book out planning to spend the last few minutes before heading off to class, studying and hoped that pizza would also be discovered as an intelligence booster.

I had read three paragraphs and day dreamed about my perfect life where I had a maid and chef for only a few minutes, when my three year old walks up to me. “Honey not right now, mommy has to study,” I said and tried to decide if my chef had made me chocolate cake or cheesecake in my daydream. “But mommy I can’t get it out.” “Uh huh thats nice sweetie.” I murmured. “Mommy it hurts! Get it out!” Realizing that he was not going to go away I looked at my mischievously angelic little boy with his upturned nose for my inspection. “You can’t get what out?” I asked now dreading his answer. “The peanut in my nose!” Sure enough, the little nut winked back at me from inside his nostril and I think it even laughed at me for thinking I had everything under control and a shot at passing this test and living happily ever after. “Why is there a peanut in your nose?” I asked. “Because I put it there.”

Sneezing, nose blowing, and tweezers wouldn’t budge the little guy and the clock is ticking closer and closer to my exam time. I get on the phone with the doctor. “My three year old has a peanut up his nose and I need to get it out fast because I have a test in 40 minutes and my teacher already hates me and I really need to do something different if I am ever going to get my own worlds-best-cheesecake-making chef.” Well Dr. practical’s solution was Urgent Care, and since my husband was totally unwilling to explore the boundaries of his capabilities with three children and a 2 hour wait in a room full of sneezing, vomiting and bleeding strangers by himself, he ventured to every man’s land: the garage. Tools fix everything right?

Funny how long it took him to find that enormous red box in the garage when the back fence broke or when my curtains needed to be hung. It took him 10 seconds flat to wade his way through the fishing gear, bike helmets and strobe light when he had enough pressure. I guess all I need to do in the future is push a peanut up my nose! And so without the use of doctors or Urgent Care’s or $100 copay’s, my handyman fix it husband used an automotive “picker tool” to pluck the peanut from our son’s nostril. I made it to my test on time and knew at least 10 of the answers on the 100 question test, but my chef never did materialize.