Free Love in the Time of Climate Change by Brian Adams Page B

they were—toilet plungers! A rack to themselves, marked down to half price, three types to choose from. Victory was within my grasp!
    I took what looked to be the sturdiest design, then went back and grabbed a second as a backup, and plotted my escape.
    I was a shadow, flitting from section to section, unseen by shoppers’ eyes, the Invisible Man. The checkout was within sight, the finish line in plain view.
    â€œHey Mr. C! What’s up?”
    I jumped. It was Charlie from the Climate Changers. Sometimes they called me Mr. C. It was a nondescript nickname that had stuck.
    Curses for my bad luck!
    â€œI wouldn’t have thought I’d see you here,” he said, smiling in what I took to be an evil kind of way.
    â€œHi, Mr. C!” said the checkout woman, a student in one of my classes.
    Double curses!
    I waved the two toilet plungers over my head and babbled some incoherent gibberish concerning roommates and bowel issues and mitigating circumstances.
    The two laughed at my obvious discomfort.
    Trying my best to hide my growing embarrassment, I checked out and started to leave the store. Suddenly, a man stepped between me and the exit, blocking my way.
    â€œExcuse me, sir. What is that in your pocket?”
    â€œWhat is what?” I replied.
    He opened up his jacket and showed his badge.
    â€œWalmart Security,” it read.
    He pointed to my pants.
    I looked down and there, sticking out like a giant erection, were the light bulbs. In my anxiety over being discovered, I had somehow, inadvertently and stupidly, thrust them into my pocket. I had meant to hide the plungers, but where would I have put them?
    â€œShit!” I cried. “Seriously, I had no idea. I mean, I am not a shoplifter. Especially from this store!”
    â€œExcuse me?” the guard said, raising his eyebrows.
    â€œNo, no. That’s not what I meant. Seriously!” I was totally flustered. “I grabbed these as a cover. You know in case I got caught.”
    â€œCaught?”
    â€œNo, no, not that kind of caught. I would never do something like this. Shit!” I cried again.
    After a brief interrogation, fortunately lacking tar, feathers, water-boards, and rope, plus outstanding character references from both giggling students, I was somehow allowed to go free. Minus, of course, the lightbulbs.
    â€œI hope you had a nice shopping experience,” the Walmart greeter said as I made my escape.
    I managed to self-edit and, wanly, smiled back.
    Reputation? What reputation!
    â€”
    What keeps me going and glowing, as a teacher, are those truly spectacular gems of moments when what goes down in my classroom is nothing short of brilliant. I’m on, the students are on. There’s animated discussion, witty asides, articulate back and forth. So many lightbulbs (compact fluorescent of course!) flashing above student heads that it sears the ceiling. No one antsy or disengaged, no squirming or fiddling with backpacks.
    Class ends and students seem reluctant to leave. Some don’t. They remain, immersed in passionate discourse, still hammering away at saving the world. Enough “aha!” moments in an hour and a quarter to fill a pirate’s treasure chest.
    When the room empties, I sit on my desk, pat myself on the back, and think, Wow, damn good class. Socrates, you got nothing on me, bro.
    It certainly makes work worth getting up in the morning for.
    All right, so that’s only happened a few times in the lastfive years. Well, maybe twice. But when it
has
happened: Somebody stop me! Absolutely awesome.
    Then there are those times, unfortunately quite a bit more frequent, when things don’t go as well as one would hope. Classes that, frankly, suck.
    Really suck.
    Like yesterday.
    I was droning on and on and on about the difference between direct causality and structural causality. How you couldn’t blame this last single extreme weather event on climate change (there was no direct cause