Banana skin: 01 (London)

I was transferred in my last three years at the university to the full-time degree programme.  This means teaching not mature students but school leavers.  I say this because being 18-year-olds fresh from A-levels / high school, their life experience is different from that of the mature students on the evening programme, and therefore their sense of humour too.

During a break in one of the classes one day, a student was eating a banana.  I said to her, “Can I have the skin when you’re done?”  She asked, “Why would you want the skin?”  I said, “The university pays me too little.”  Stunned silence from the whole class.

(London, 2008)