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Patrick was late to Physics. He was running to catch the next bus, and as he sat down, he saw Agnis. She was a homeless 60 year old who always appeared to be chewing gum. She grinned and said "Hiyah" to Patrick. He straightened his silver, square shaped glasses, and awkwardly folded his long legs under him, slicked his hair down to the side, resorted his books so he could study before he got to class, and ignored her.

As he looked down to avoid her toothy smile, he noticed his sneakers. He never could figure out why they wore out so quick. And it was always in the same place, right at the ball of his foot on the inside! Weren't sneakers meant to be worn for walking? So he dragged his feet a little, so what?

He looked up again and thought to himself, "I wonder when she went to church last - you can't find God when you're so dirty! 'Bet she didn't even graduate high school. Boy the homeless sure are stupid."

Agnis spoke up, "Goin' to class are yah? "'Mighty fine young man yah are. "Gonna be a scientist someday, eh?"

She had long a's and it made Patrick smirk to himself. "She can't even talk right." Thinking ahead to class, Patrick said to himself, "What can I ask the stupid T.A. today to stump him? He's such a nerd!"

Agnis heard Patrick mumbling to himself and piped up, "What class are yah studyin' for? Whatcha' studyin' in it?"

Patrick looked up from his books, annoyed. He knew if he didn't answer, she would never shut up. So, he replied icily, "Physics class, studying energy."

"What aspect of it?" she returned.

"Man, this lady just won't let up," Patrick thought to himself. "I gotta answer her, then maybe she'll leave me alone." So he said, "The theory of relativity, you know, E=mc squared." Patrick smirked again as he thought, "Maybe that will shut her up."

But it didn't. For the rest of his bus ride, Agnis babbled off information about relativity like there was no tomorrow. Without thinking, Patrick took notes on the stuff she was telling him. This plus a over b divided by the fraction of d equals this variable. As Patrick got off the bus, he realized what had just happened. This bag lady, at least he thought she was, had just gone further in 5 minutes on Physics than he had in the past 5 weeks. Had he fallen asleep or something? No, he couldn't have learned new stuff if he had.

After class, he was walking back with one of his older classmates, and he told him the story of his bus ride earlier. The guy looked at him and started to laugh.

"What's so funny?" Patrick asked. "It was weird man. I'm tellin' you, it was like I was on Candid Camera or something."

The guy replied, still giggling, "Man, Agnis has a doctorate in Physics. I thought everyone knew about her. She cracked about five years ago and lost her job, but she still hangs around the university, for kicks I guess. She even helped me out with my homework the other day."

As the guy walked off, Patrick stood in the middle of the sidewalk, dumbstruck. "Well how the hell was I supposed to know she was a genius?" he yelled after him. "She's a bag lady - she isn't supposed to be smart!"

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The contents of these pages are copyright 1996 by Jennifer Kelbaugh. Said contents may not be published for profit or restricted without the express written permission of the author. For the purposes of this notice, the author of all contents on this page is Jennifer Kelbaugh.