How To Find Out What Happens When A Scientist Doesn’t Have A Social Life

What happens when the brightest minds are banished to the back of the room?

Indubitably, sparks will fly and things will go boom…

“Hey, Howard, this boredom is killing me back here!”

Alas, my cries of ennui fell upon deaf ears–well, actually they were “ears solely focused on the academic struggles of my plebeian cohort”–of our (mostly) beloved Mr. Raff.

You see, that’s the problem when science comes easy to you: your smart ass gets stuck sitting in the back of your Freshman science class, at the lab tables…with minimal supervision…with nothing to do.

And the teachers at Rolla High School, much like the teachers at any other ‘Merican school–always justified such involuntary isolation with, “Well, we don’t want you distracting the other students, blah blah blah…”

Now riddle me this, Oh Wise Sages: how the heck do you expect us nerdlings to develop proper social skills if you’re always separating our ilk from the regular salt-of-the-earth kids?

Dear Teachers, hear me now: this barbaric anti-social practice of yours? I darn-sure guarantee you it’s just begging for some anti-social behavior in response.

Now, is that what you really want? To create the next generation of evil-geniuses? Do you really want to be responsible for the next Ted Kaczynski?

I didn’t think so…

“ZIP! ZAP! ZIP! ZTTTTTTTTT!”

You know, I gotta be honest: I expected a few sparks to fly, but, man, whew! Let’s just say that my scientific inquisitivity was promptly rewarded with quite the little Fourth of July fireworks display.

And I gotta say, I was a little disappointed that none of my fellow students got to enjoy the fruits of the labor of my lightly burnt fingertips. You know, on account of me being stuck in the back of the classroom and all…

Now, before you go judging me for recklessly endangering my classmates for my own amusement, I just wanna say in my defense: that was probably the most truly scientific event to happen in that classroom all year.

Think about it: what is the true spirit of experimental endeavors? What is the motto of the scientific community? I can’t remember exactly, but I believe it’s something like:

“F*ck Around And Find Out”

the battle cry of curious minds around the world

Yeah,yeah, I’ve heard that somewhere before, and I’m pretty sure that’s what means…right?

So naturally, when a little voice in my awkward little future-physicist head whispered into my awkward little future-physicist ear, “Hey, don’t you ever wonder what really happens when you stick a paper clip into an electric socket?” what do you think I did?

Dang straight:

I f*cked around and found out…

“Whoever the mastermind is, they overlooked one key detail: Mr. Raff is not a smoker.”

I averted my eyes as un-suspiciously as possible, trying not draw the attention of the Mr. P & Mr. B, RHS’s principal and vice principle, respectively.

“Youths, if any of you know who is responsible for this attempted act of terrorism, please tell us now.”

“That’s right, this is no laughing matter: had there been the slightest spark, the entire science classroom–and probably the library, too–would have been blown to high-heaven.”

I continued to act as nonchalant as possible.

“Children, we know that an entire classroom doesn’t magically fill with natural gas by itself overnight. Whoever the culprit is, we can can guarantee you this: we will sniff you out.”

“Heh, heh, nice pun.”

“Thanks! Glad you appreciated it…” Despite the gravity of the matter, Mr. P. had no problem accepting Mr. B.’s complement of his incredible egregious Dad-joke. But, fear not, he quickly regained his serious demeanor:

“Hey! Who’s that trying to whistle all innocently at the back of the room?”

“Yeah, you–sitting at the lab table…”

“…next to the gas valve for the Bunsen burners…”

Misters P. & B. looked at each other in shock as an uncomfortable realization washed over them, before turning to glare at Mr. Raff.

“Dammit, Howard, you’ve gone and done it–you’ve turned RHS’s star student into the next Unabomber!”¹Bonus fun fact: Ted Kaczynski was arrested almost at the exact same time as the events in this story happened (+/- 1.5 months), on April 3, 1996.

“Son, a word, please?”

I knew finding myself in a huge pile of deep doo-doo was inevitable from the moment I arrived early that morning at my first-period math class–also held in the science room–only to find the door oddly propped open by a trash can.

But I loved Mr. Raff–he was “beloved’ after all, was he not?–and I had never meant to almost blow him to the Great Beyond. Aww, man, if I wanted to avoid being sent off to Juvenile Detention, I only had once choice: to come clean–no matter how embarrassing the truth may be.

I nervously cleared my throat, not sure if they would find believable what I was about to tell them.

“So, you see what happened was…well, I had finished all my homework as usual, and was sitting by my lonesome there in the back, when heard a little voice in my head. It said, ‘Hey, what do you suppose would happen if you, oh, I don’t know, say, jammed a chunk of paper in the Bunsen burner gas valve²As opposed to “in your ears“… and then turned it on real quick-like?’…”

“Okaaaaay…and…?”

“Of course, I had to test out that theorem…it worked pretty well, I might add–launched them spitwads about a quarter of the way across the room…”

“Sure, but that doesn’t explain why you left the gas on all ----- night.”

“Oh, right. Well, that Voice wasn’t satisfied with just 1/4 of the classroom, hissing into my innocent little hearing-orifice: “You know, you really need to let the pressure build. Why not jam a SUPER-BIG wad in there so it takes a few minutes of the gas being on before it blasts out at a high velocity? Inquiring minds want to know: is it possible to blast it all the way across the room?’ And you can’t ignore sound logic like that, right?”

“Hmmm…go on…”

“So, like any scientist worth their salt, I, um…”

“You what?”

“…well, I kinda ‘f*cked around’…”

*beat*

“…but I forgot to stick around and, uh, you know, ‘find out’…”

Mr. P. let out a sigh that was somewhere in between exasperation and relief.

“Well, today’s your lucky day, son. Fortunately for you, ‘unadulterated dumbassery’ is not a crime…”

“…and as for you…”

The two principals turned their attention to Mr. Raff.

“Dammit, Howard, you may have not created an evil genius, per se–just what appears to be a ‘stupid genius.’ And that’s probably even more dangerous…”

Content created on: 8/9 April 2022 (Fri/Sat)

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