College. The greatest six years of a young person’s life. I finished in four- chalk it up to high standards.

College for me, however, was hardly four years of Pulitzer-worthy lab reports and acclaimed creative writing. In fact, in my sophomore year, I failed Geography. F. Zero credits. The big Canadian goose egg. And to fail geography- well, that’s pretty sad, man. Somebody tried to teach me about our world, and I didn’t get it…at all. But it was just geography, right? Italy may not look like a boot to everybody, right? And just because I thought Delaware was the capital of Maryland, that didn’t make me less worldly; I was just bad with maps. Anyway, I probably should have known I was going to fail the course when I missed the first class because I couldn’t find the geography building on the campus map (that and because I had converted my university-issued globe into a bong).

More than anything, I attribute failing geography (the actual name of the course was “Human Geography: Habitat, Climate and Culture”) to two things: chickens and yams- two exports (or imports or something) of some country in some hemisphere of which I would never know. The night before the geography final, as I leafed through my notes in an attempt to do what some college kids called “studying,” I was alarmed to find that, among the endless white-boy graffiti (”Top 5 Asses of Alpha Phi,” etc.), the only geography-related notes I had bothered to jot down after three and a half months of lectures were the words “chickens and yams.” Not “Chickens and yams are the main exports of Peru,” or “Chickens and yams both thrive in the dry Gobi climate.” No- just “chickens and yams.” Studying for the final was going to be a bitch.

How was I going to do this? I had nothing to go on except chickens and yams. Oh and there were my roommate’s notes (he was also taking the course), but he was even more of a fuck-up than I was. Where I had “chickens and yams” written down, he had simply scribbled, “yams.” Those were his only notes for the semester. That asshole got a C-.

Now the exam was in eight hours, and with only chickens, yams, and yams to go on, I thought, “Fuck it- I’m studying these notes!” I was obviously delusional. I figured that if chickens and yams had found their way into my notes, then learning their geographical significance was a key to passing this exam. Whatever.

Okay. Chickens and yams, chickens and yams. Were chickens and yams the chief exports of Wales? No- that was probably blubber. Were they the chief exports of Holland? No again, that would probably have been Hollandaise sauce. Where was my geography book? I’d look “chickens” and “yams” up in the index and …shit! Why didn’t I buy the book? Save a few bucks — sure, dumb ass, great idea. Meanwhile, I was wasting a couple thousand bucks on a class that was going to sink my GPA (which had just peeked at 2.8) to the bottom of the Caspian Sea (wherever the hell that was).

Okay. I would forget chickens and yams for one second. I needed alternative methods of studying geography. I listened to the song “Africa” by Toto to learn more about that great city (it rains a lot there). No help. I thought back to my spring-break trip to Amsterdam, but questions about “the chronic” would probably not be on the exam. Wait a minute! I remembered being given a handout from the professor on rivers. Where was it? Tucked away in the back of my notebook — there it was! I unfolded the handout. Yes! A map of rivers in South America! Perfect study material. “Wait a minute,” I thought. “This isn’t going to help.” Just a tip — don’t ever doodle on a map of rivers.

Maybe I could have studied with my world history textbook? I knew I’d be responsible for knowing stupid little historical and cultural facts about geographical locations, like the name of the wall that used to separate Russia from the Soviet Union, and what the currency was in Hawaii. Who cares, right? Anyway, I hadn’t bought that book either. World History: D+.

Chickens and yams! They mocked me. I began to hate chickens. Filthy fucking birds! And I never liked yams. Why would anyone ever eat yams over mashed potatoes? Fuck yams! Hideous fruit!

Anger was not going to help, and at that point neither would anything else. I needed to cool down. I decided to go to my friend Tucker’s apartment and drink beer. He had been trying to study for his Shakespeare final, but I convinced him that if the French dude wasn’t speaking his language then, he most likely wouldn’t be on the exam. Let’s drink. So we drank and drank and —

How did I fail geography? Let me count the ways. Reason #1: poor note-taking skills. Chickens and yams were not on the final. Would it have even made a difference if they were? No. (The final, by the way, was brutal. It might as well have been an exam on astrophysics in Sanskrit). Did I ever find out the significance of chickens and yams? “Stuff you can eat,” according to Tucker (my thanks to his parents for raising a fine boy. How he passed Shakespeare, I’ll never know). Reason #2: Olympia is a city in Washington state that cans beer and sells it very cheaply in New England college towns. And reason #3: Let’s just say you should never cheat off a guy wearing an Alf T-shirt. Oh, and buy the book.