Deep Sarcasm

When I was giving my tenth standard chemistry practical, I was pretty much unprepared for the write-up. Memorizing equations by heart just isn’t my thing, and chemistry was never that much fun anyway. So after mixing some acids and bases together, passing in the occasional egg-smelling H2S, and creating hot toxic fumes, I stood there for a while staring at my answer sheet.

I must’ve stared too long because I looked at my watch, and lo I barely had five minutes left. Almost everything was done except the final answer, the question was basically asking how much % HCl was in the given solution.

The one problem here was that I had forgotten the molar mass of some compound I don’t care to remember now. Note that by this time almost all students had left and I was practically the only person left in class, except a classmate who was just about to step out. Since I didn’t have enough time to calculate the mass myself, I asked this person what the molar mass of [whatever] was.

He told me, and I calculated my result. Then I turned in my paper to my professor - we didn’t exactly share a very friendly relationship, if you had asked me before this one day I’d say he somewhat enjoyed picking on me. So he looks down at my answer and then looks up at me - we were the only two people in class, besides
the lab assistant, who wasn’t paying attention.

Him: This is wrong, you idiot.
Me: Eh?
Him: The molar mass of [whatever] is [something].
Me: Right.

He goes on to tell me the correct answer, and hands over the sheet for me to fix it; I do, and hand it back to him. Considering that this was one of those examinations where the grading is done by an external board of education and is hence technically out of the school’s jurisdiction, he essentially went out of his way to help me.

Guess you can’t judge a book by its cover.