My friend Elpidio was a pre-med student. He was a natural-born doctor and loved his biology and chemistry classes. But since Pomona College is a liberal arts school, everyone has to take a broad range of courses, and Elpidio could no longer put off taking a course from the humanities section. He had chosen Philosophy 101, and found the reading list tough sledding.

Midterms came around and Elpidio was not feeling too confident about how he had performed on his Philosophy test. The professor had posted the grades outside his office, but Elpidio was afraid to go take a look. He had sent his buddy Kevin over to see what the grade was. Kevin could then decide on his own when and how to tell Elpidio how he’d done.

Elpidio and Amir and I were hanging out in my room talking when Kevin showed up, a sly smile on his face.

Elpidio saw that expression and had to know. “Come on, tell me,” he said. “I didn’t do that well, did I? Did I get a B at least? It was a B, right?”

Kevin sadly shook his head.

“Oh, damn! I got a C. I knew it. I knew I should have studied harder! I got a C, didn’t I?”

Kevin continued shaking his head.

“What?!! I got a D?!! Oh no! Seriously? It was a D??”

Kevin stared at him for a moment, and shook his head again.

“No! No!!! An F? I got an F? I couldn’t have gotten an F! It’s not possible. Oh no, I got an F! Are you sure?”

Kevin said quietly, “No, you didn’t get an F.”

Stunned silence. “What, then? Did I get an A? That’s the only thing I haven’t said. It was an A??”

Kevin cut short any such thoughts. “You got an F minus.”

“An F minus? There’s no F minus.”

Kevin showed him the blue book with the professor’s handwriting scrawled on the cover.

“This is the single most poorly written exam I have ever had the sad duty to evaluate. Did you do any of the reading at all?” And underneath was a big, red F minus, with a red circle around it.

I offered Elpidio an RC Cola but there was no consoling him.

But things turned out all right. He went to see the professor and arranged a make-up exam. He passed the course, he got into medical school, and today’s he’s a pediatrician (we call him Elpidiatrician).