Comb jellies

Have you ever had a perfectly sensible thought floating around in your head, but when that thought transformed into a sound wave and made its way out your mouth, you realize that the intended meaning is far different than the actual meaning? I offer you a now-classic science department story to let you know that you're not the only one.

As a 22 year-old biology education major who once thought herself to be calm, cool, collected, and smart, I find myself somehow standing in front of a classroom full of hormonal adolescents talking about the characteristics of the animal kingdom. Just so you can get a feel for how innocent and naive the particular verbal slip on which this story hinders really was, let's reenact the scene.

Me: Alright, kids. Today we're going to learn a little bit about the study of taxonomy. No, we're not stuffing dead animals; instead, we'll be categorizing organisms based on certain characteristics. To start, I'm going to time us for two minutes, and I'd like you to write down any animal that comes to mind. Ready...set...go. (You should do this, too.)

(Two minutes later) Me: OK. Time's up. Check with your neighbors to see if they came up with some ideas that you didn't and add those to your list. Now I'd like you to cross off any animal with fur, legs, or wings. What's left?

We then make a list of the few leftovers on the board. How did you do? What's left on your list of non-furry, leg-less, wing-less animals?

At this point I begin to open the idea of what an animal really is. Can we boil the entire animal kindgom down to things you see in a zoo? Is that how small our view of life really is? I hold up a sponge and ask the kids to describe it. Is this sponge an animal? Yes!

Me: In fact, my favorite animal is something commonly called a comb jelly, and it doesn't look anything like what you'd see at the zoo.

I need to take a Saved by the Bell timeout right here. Please scroll back up to the beginning of this story and look at the picture I've uploaded. How would you describe this cute, little creature to a class full of uninterested teenagers? (Is that a redundant statement?)

Back to the action.

Me: In fact, my favorite animal is something commonly called a comb jelly, and it doesn't look anything like what you'd see at the zoo. They're these cute little sea creatures that have rows of cilia to aid in locomotion. (Blank stares all around.) Well, they kind of remind me of those ping pong balls with velcro on them that you throw at a dart board. (More blank stares.) Oh, yeah. You guys didn't experience the 80's. (So finally, in an exasperated tone, I say...) They look like hairy balls!

The last word actually came out more like "baaaaaaalls", as I was trying my best to somehow put the vibrating air particles back into my mouth before they reached my students’ ears and completed the sound circuit.

How do you recover from telling my pubescent posse that something looked like hairy balls? Needless to say, I have grabbed everyone’s attention, so I just stand there.

“I just said ‘hairy balls’, didn’t I?” I ask.

“Yep,” they say.

“Hum.” I say. And we just sort of look at each other for a moment. I feebly attempt to recover the rest of the class period by asking the kids to write down the characteristics for other kingdoms using their books while I secretly wish invisibility cloaks really did exist.

Something so innocent coming out so horribly. For me, it’s all in a day’s work.