fandomhigh | Human Anatomy, Thursday, 1/25, Period 3

Elliot had arranged the desks in the classroom to look like tables for two in a restaurant, complete with tablecloths and rosebud vases.

"Hey people, I am hoping you are all yourselves today because we are learning about the digestive system." She hit a button on her laptop, and a powerpoint presentation of the system popped up. "The key parts of the digestive system are the mouth, the tongue, the esophagus, the stomach, the small intestine, the large intestine, and the anus. They work together to get food from the plate to, um, the bathroom." She explained the workings of each part in more detail, passing out a handout as she did so, before hitting another button on her laptop to bring up a media player.

"For doctors, it's one of the most important systems because pretty much everything about your body chemistry turns up in the output of the digestive system. To show you what I mean, here's a little song from a recent episode of a strangely true-to-life medical sitcom."

She played the video, humming along, before turning to face the class again. "I am not going to make each of you give a stool sample, because that's kind of unhygienic and the administration would probably get creeped out by it. But you will be testing the other end of your digestive systems. Each of you has an array of baby food jars containing food samples in front of you; your job is to pair up, take turns blindfolding each other,and feed each other to see how sensitive your tastebuds are. You should each have something sweet, something salty, something sour and something bitter."

"And as always, add a sketch representing at least part of the digestive system to your body tracings before the end of class but after you un-blindfold yourselves."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Peter put the blindfold on and then motioned for Neil to go ahead. "Hit me."

Picking up the pickle with the tweezers he started to move it towards Peter's mouth then paused and reread the instructions.

"You know, it seems to me that the last time I did this, you were supposed to touch the food stuff to the four main quadrants of your mouth to find which tastebuds reacted strongly to the flavor."

"Maybe that's half the challenge?" Peter suggested. "No helping the taste buds along?"

"Does this make it a pop quiz for tastebuds?" Neil asked as he popped the foodstuff into Peter's mouth.

"Maybe." Peter chewed. "Okay, definitely not sweet."

"More salty or sour?" Neil asked, grabbing the clipboard to notate Peter's reaction.

He didn't think of pickle as bitter.

"Little bit of both," Peter said. "But if I had to pick a side I'd go with sour. And maybe a hot dog on the side."

Neil chuckled.

"I always thought a rueben went with them best." He said as he marked down Peter's response then reached for the next item.

Melba Toast!

Peter chewed thoughtfully. "Is crunchy an option?"

"Not so much." Neil said, giving the clipboard another look. "Neither is bland or cardboard."

Yeah, Neil had some particular feelings about melba toast.

"Damn, there go my next guesses," Peter said. "How about painful? Or are we saving that for the shards of glass cup?"

"Are you peeking?" Neil mock accused.

"Never, I swear!" Peter said. He chewed more. "Okay, this is definitely the styrofoam group."

"Styrofoam, bitter...poe-tay-toe, poe-tah-toe, to me." Neil agreed and marked down the choice he had on the sheet before reaching for the next item.

He figured Peter deserved a treat after the melba toast and this time picked up the lemon sherbert.

Peter grinned when he tasted what was obviously lemon. He pretended not to know. "Hmmm... chocolate?"

Neil rolled his eyes and gave Peter a light tap on the nose with the spoon.

"I don't feed chocolate on a first date. Try again." He said, good natured humor in his voice.

Peter chuckled. "Hey, you never know. I could be worth it."

"Promises, promises."

"Just for that I won't tell you what this tastes like," Peter said. "See if I trust you again."

Neil chuckled and shook his head, then tapped the pen lightly on the clipboard and looked at Peter, even though Peter was blindfolded.

"All right, I'm sorry. You could totally be worth it."

"Thank you," Peter said, acting mollified. "In which case this is sweet and sour. Mostly sour."

"Sour, got it." There came the sound of a pen scritching on paper and then the clinking of jars as Neil picked up the next goodie.

This one, was bacon.

"Open wide."