Living on Your Own, Friday, Period 1

Jul 11, 2008 08:11

The group met in a classroom equipped with cooking equipment, and the teacher was wearing an incongruous frilly pink apron that his face dared the class to say something about.

He was teaching home ec. May as well look the part.

After the students were assembled, Tyler began to talk.

"So this is Living on Your Own, or, as I seem to keep calling it when I'm trying to explain what it is, guerilla home ec. We'll talk about some kind of practical stuff -- finding a place, getting a job -- and also about stuff like cooking and enough housekeeping to keep your house from getting declared a fire hazard."

"My name is Tyler Durden. Call me Tyler, call me Mr. Durden, whatever works. As for how I am qualified to teach this, I've been basically on my own since I was 14 and I'm in one piece." He was ignoring the time he'd spent in state custody, yes. "If you need me outside class hours, my office hours are Mondays. Your TA is Meg Manning."

"This week, we're going to make soap. It's a little harder than most of what we'll do, but I figure you may as well dive right in. Plus I like making soap. Really it's a basic project -- rendered fat, lye, cold water and that's it. You can add scents or color if you want to. Supplies and directions are at the workstations. Lye's nothing to screw around with, so please, wear rubber gloves and work together if you don't know what you're doing."

"But before we start on the soap, I'd like to do that introductions thing. Name, age, experience living on your own, and" -- he smiled for the first time -- "who you would fight out of anyone, living or dead. Fictional figures included."

living on your own

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