The year was 1992 and the class was Economics. The building where the class was taught is located right next door to the one where the attack took place on Monday at Ohio State. Certain places will always feel like home, and certain things will always never be tolerable. [Always-never: not great grammar, but no one’s objectively grading this work so there’s that].
Econ was the first college class I had that let me know I loved the business world, that I had a penchant to understand supply and demand, and that the actual reason I liked Government and Accounting my Senior year of High School had everything to do with the subject(s) and nothing to do with the teacher.
College classes have been on my mind for a two-fold reason: One, Liv is just about ready to conclude her first semester of her sophomore year and I can feel her tension and stress over the impending finals from 3 hours away. Secondly, I have a final exam…a literal final exam on Monday. Whatever about that. Can’t we just write a paper like all the other preceding classes? Uh, no says the Prof. He’s too busy to grade them which renders me Deloreaned back to circa 1992.
I got an A in that Economics class. Not so sure about Systematic Theology but we shall see. Have a little faith, why don’tchya…
Liv calls me more during finals season. Studies show that when you hear your Mom’s voice, your blood pressure goes down. I will skip the low-hanging fruit sarcasm this sentence could very easily contain and just say, let’s go with that. Her blood pressure was boiling over when she called me Monday. After I deduced what she was saying from her plethora of unpleasant words, I realized she was upset about a grade she had received on a paper.
“Is she serious with this?” she spewed at me.
“Read it to me,” I calmly requested.
“Blah blah blah….insinuates…blah blah blah. I used insinuates and she circled it!”
Now, the sentence not only sounded totally intelligible, it was really good. For a girl who went kicking and screaming over any admission of liking anything her blood-pressure-reducing Mom likes, this was big. For a Mom who has been waiting for years for a semblance of an admission – especially about anything writing-related!, this was huge. Bigly.
“Did she leave any comments along with her displeasure?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah. She said to use implies instead.”
My calmness turned into inner seething coupled with a bit of nostalgia and definite conclusions about the nature v. nurture debate.
“Honey, some things never change. The Professor will always be right (and understood [self-professed] to be smarter), subjective grading will always be a thing – especially with writing, and a Thesaurus always makes for a felicitous end-of-semester gift.”
“Not that I’m insinuating anything.”
We laughed. She calmed down. I cheered up and was thankful to feel needed once again.
And also for the love of supply and demand.