Whoa.

I just woke up from a strange one. I had Osama bin Laden as a guest speaker in one of my classes, and I was getting annoyed because a lot of students were bored and not disguising it.

Osama was indeed pretty boring, but there was one interesting conversation:

A student: Are you going to kill us all right now?
Osama: No.
Me: Why not?
Osama (paraphrased): Because I’m not a suicide bomber. I’m needed for the cause. (He went on and on for a few minutes, but that was essentially all he said.)
Student: Are you going to kill us all as soon as you leave the building?

At this point, a different student, named Neil, got up and started walking toward the door. I shouted his name and told him to sit down. Then I went over to him and told him he was being disrespectful, and I slapped him. He was holding an unlit cigarrette, and I took it from him.

He was laughing, but when I took his cigarrette, he said, “Hey, you can’t take that!”

I said I could and he went off on this little rant in which he swore at me, so I tore up the cigarrette.

He was shocked. “Aw, man. I was just quoting some lines from Dazed and Confused,” he said. “Haven’t you seen that movie?”