So I was studying my organic chemistry the other day and, Iowa State, I’m not going to lie, I started to feel a little animosity toward the subject. Maybe it was the fact that valuable memory cells normally reserved for movie quotes were being needlessly used for chemical reactions. Maybe it was the fact that my shoulder had separated that afternoon from carrying around the textbook. Maybe it was the fact that I was studying when I could have been putting firecrackers in pieces of banana and then lighting them next to unsuspecting friends.

Whatever the reason, enough was enough. I set down my beer, closed up my textbook and did the next logical thing — I wrote a poem. About organic chemistry. I’m aware that no one in his or her right mind does that, but I don’t care. I do apologize for alienating people who’ve never taken chemistry, but I can’t help it.

By the way, the firecracker in the banana thing is ALWAYS FUNNY. This was a collaboration of my two rugby friends, Jason York and Dan Gazda, and basically entails cutting a banana in half, sticking a black cat or, better yet, water dynamite, in the open end, lighting it, and pointing it like a gun, coating your pal with exploded banana.

Another technique is to take a piece of banana out of the peel and make yourself a banana grenade. You should preferably try to do this when your friend is talking to a girl he likes.

There is a name for these exploding bananas that mildly relates to MTV’s “Jackass” application of bottle rockets. Unfortunately, I can’t print either the name or the bottle rocket application. I just realized, however, that I massively digressed from the original topic of this column, which, in case you forgot, was organic chemistry.

Without any further ado I offer…

Jon’s Ode to Organic Chemistry

Roses are red, copper sulfate is blue,

I really don’t like Chem 332

So a poem I wrote of alkanes and moles,

It’s kind of smart ass ’cause that’s how I roll

DAMN YOU old carbon for making four bonds

Were this not the case, my pain would be gone

But form them you do, and I study them hard

In a textbook that cost me more than my car

I study all day and all through the nights

Growing pale and gaunt under fluorescent lights

Thanks to the ketones I’m losing my wits

And as for resonance I don’t give two … umm, darns

There’s one lonely bright spot in organic study

It’s a functional group that’s my drinking buddy

A glorious -OH is worth textbook money

And justifies the sacrifice of my early 20s

“What IS O-chem’s point?” I ask every day

If there is none, drop out, that’s what I say

So what have I learned from my matriculation?

That -OH on ethane is a practical application

(If you don’t get it, ask a chem geek like me — it’s cool)

So now I must end and I must draw to conclusion

I shall end with authority so there is no confusion

Understanding this subject is a pain in the ass

I don’t want to get it …

I just want to pass