Earthworm jimmied.

Today's post is a bit of a rebuttal to my own post on warning labels from the other day, as you shall see.

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You learn a lot of lessons in school, many of which are not the ones you're specifically taught. 

My wife was telling the story of Frog Dissection Day in her high-school biology class, where her lab partner actually fainted, leaving her to face the frog alone. The bio teacher filled in as her "partner," but of course he was not going to do any of the work. I think the frog had a better day than my wife did. 

The year I took biology in high school, the school system was too broke for the Fetal Pig. There was a well-known progression in bio lab over the course of the school year: Earthworm, Frog, Fetal Pig. It had been that way through history, right up through the year before mine. But New York City was in the midst of one of its financial crises, and so we were down to the worm and the frog. 

I actually missed frog day; I don't think I was too skeeved out to go, so I suspect I was actually sick that day, not playing hooky. But I do remember Earthworm Dissection Day. Vividly.

Unlike my wife's bio class, we got four lab partners to each worm. I must confess that this was no advanced science class; it was just the required class. It was not a smarty pants nerd class full of Future Physicians and Amateur Golfers of America. So the studentry was real mixed bag. 

Speaking for myself, I had no idea what was going on. What's inside an earthworm, anyway? Earth? Gray pudding? They can't really have organs, can they? I dreaded finding out. 

Nevertheless, the day came, and the four of us at my table were staring down at the largest earthworm I had ever seen, dead and stretched out on a board. 

The girls on our team didn't want to touch it. They were of the classic Brooklyn F--- that I ain't touchin no f——- worm variety. I certainly didn't want to do anything to make myself look stupid in front of these kids -- being a A/B student was the only thing I had over them. And the other boy was a tall galoot who could have been a jock but had instead chosen a career as a stoner, the kind of guy that could flunk a course in breathing. So things looked pretty grim.

Then, as the worm turns, so too came the most unexpected turn of events.

The dumb guy picked up the tools, looked at the diagram, and with no words, started in gently. With no help from the rest of the team, he did an absolutely gorgeous job on the worm. He sliced it to the right millimeter, then peeled and pinned back the skin as gently as a breath of spring, leaving the deceased annelid's organs on display like an exhibit in a museum. At other tables the students were descending into chaos, their worms looking like they'd been sat on. Our worm's innards were so clearly delineated you could have taken a photo of it for a textbook. Out of nowhere this teenage boy made us all look like we knew what we were doing.

Had this been a hobby of his? Or could this have been a life-changing moment, the moment this guy decided to smarten up and become a doctor, a pathologist, a coroner, or a serial killer? I have no idea who he was or what became of him, so I cannot hazard a guess. But as he pulled forth the worm organs, so too he pulled our fat out of the fire, and I have always been grateful. 

It's a reminder that you really can't judge someone's insides entirely by their outsides.

And I certainly never have looked at earthworms the same way again.

I salute you, worm dissection guy. I'm sorry I missed what was probably a virtuoso performance on the frog. I only hope that you went on to use your amazing surgical prowess productively, and for good, not for evil.