I wish this story wasn’t true.
I went to school in a tiny town in the Bible Belt. In my senior year, we had this professor that was from a major city. He was fairly successful and even had been on a television show back in the 90s. He had an inflated ego. He was handsome as far as older professors go. No Ezra Fitz. But he had all of his hair in his late 40s. So he had something going for him (that thing was plugs).
He was a very polarizing presence to the students. Some people were obsessed with him and took his validation to heart. Whereas others found him narcissistic and masochistic. I fell somewhere in between. I was a goodie two shoes in college and loved the approval from my superiors (Later, that changed when a professor told me I needed to get a boob job. After that, no fucks were given. But that’s a story for another blog). I thought he was harmless. I didn’t care enough to have a real opinion.
There was a rumor about how he used to work at the college years ago but was fired for meeting up with a student the day after graduation. They met up at a bar and hooked up. Weird. But they waited until after graduation. At least, it wasn’t during school. Once I heard that story, I started to see that his behavior was odd. He brought up sex a little too much for someone who had made out with an old student.
We go on a college trip and he is the professor who accompanies us. He was late for all the classes and events we had during that trip. He also smelled like pot… a lot. At that point, I was bummed I didn’t get invited to smoke… kidding.
Fast forward to the end of the year, it is finals week. He tells us that our final is going to be off-campus. We didn’t think much of it. I went to a small school so the professors knew their students pretty well. It wasn’t that odd for a professor to take his class off-campus. I get to the address I was sent for the final and find it is a small house a few miles away. I knock on the door and wait for three minutes. I’m starting to stress out because I’m afraid I messed up and am going to miss my final. I cared too much in college.
He finally answers the door after I email him that I think I am at the wrong location. When the door opens, I look inside and don’t see my class. What I do see is one other female classmate. My teacher looks like he either just woke up or didn’t sleep the night before. The other student was a casual friend. We make eye contact and exchange a “wtf” look to each other. My classmate is still in her jacket with her backpack on. This is a TELL she uncomfy.
My professor said he was going to do finals verbally. Two students at a time. There is a bowl of weed on my professor’s table. We awkwardly pet his dog and chat for a bit. He can tell we both are not feeling it. He then reveals that we don’t need to take the final. He said we both were two of his top students and that we were free to go.
We guessed that he didn’t even have a final prepared. He probably saw spring breakers too many times and had an inflated ego. He probably thought college girls were so crazy and he was the hot older professor we were dying to get with. Classic porn plot.
I think when he saw how uncomfortable we were, he just let us leave.
Later we asked classmates if they had to go to his house for the final. They all said they got an email that said there wasn’t a final for the class.
It’s the fact that he thought just because I do the homework and show up for his class, I might be into him. No. Maybe if he let me skip the class for the whole year and gave me an A….. maybe.
