Jonathan and I were in the same biology class. Mr.

Hackney, one of the all-time most boring teachers in the

entire universe, was the teacher. When we were just little

kids, when my brother was about a year away from going

into high school, all the big kids used to warn my brother

about how boring Mr. Hackney’s biology class was. Then

my brother had Mr. Hackney, and he warned me, so when

I got him, I was fairly well prepared, except Mr. Hackney

turned out to be even more boring than everybody had

said. But I was fortunate. Somehow, I got to sit next to

Jonathan, and we got to sit at the last lab desk in the

last row, over by the windows. I didn’t know if anybody

had prepared Jonathan for Mr. Hackney, but I kind of

thought Jonathan knew what to expect.

For the first month of the year, Jonathan was at

his blacknoser best, asking all kinds of dumb, boring

questions that only boring old Mr. Hackney thought were

interesting. Jonathan stayed under control and had Mr.

Hackney thinking he was a model student. Even boring

Mr. Hackney could appreciate a model student, especially

when that model student was a black kid. With Jonathan

pulling his blacknosing routine and Mr. Hackney at his

boring best, the class was almost unbearable, until we

got to the chapters on the cell. Now, I was sure some

biologists or scientists somewhere thought cells were

pretty interesting, but I thought cells were the most

boring things in the entire universe. Learning about them

from the most boring teacher in the entire universe was

a brutal experience, except fortunately we had Jonathan

in the class.

It all started when Mr. Hackney described the different

parts of the cell. First, there was the cell membrane, which

surrounded each cell like a wall. The cell was filled up with

stuff called cytoplasm. Floating in the cytoplasm were all

kinds of weird junk with some really weird names, like

the Golgi body, ribosomes, the endoplasmic reticulum,

and mitochondria. Right in the middle of each cell was

the nucleus. Well, as Mr. Hackney was going through all

this in his usual boring way, Jonathan said that he was

going to start his own cell. He said he was going to be

the nucleus, and then he started telling kids in the class

that they could be parts of his cell. Of course, Jonathan

would do this when Mr. Hackney was out of the room or

before or after class. It took boring Mr. Hackney quite a

few weeks to get through the chapters on the cell, and all

the while, Jonathan was making up his own cell.

It was sort of like a club. The first thing you had to do

to get into the club was pass through the cell membrane

or cell wall, and of course, Jonathan was in charge of

deciding who got through the cell wall. Once he let you

through the cell wall, you had to float around in the

cytoplasm for a while until you earned a higher position

as a ribosome. Then came the endoplasmic reticulum, but

if you were stupid or goofy or something, you got stuck

being a lowly Golgi body. If you were really good, you got

the highly respectable position of mitochondrion, and just

maybe, if you were really good and thought of very highly

by Jonathan, he’d let you into the nucleus.

Needless to say, when Jonathan started his cell, he was

the only one in the nucleus. I considered myself fortunate

to be an endoplasmic reticulum. Phil was assigned the

position of ribosome, and everybody else was just floating

around in the cytoplasm—except Mr. Hackney. Jonathan

vowed never to allow Mr. Hackney through the cell wall.

Jonathan decided that everybody in our biology class had

to be considered in his cell. At first, nobody appreciated

what an honor it was to be in Jonathan’s cell, but soon

the idea started to catch on. Some of the kids in the

class wanted to know why they could only float around

in the cytoplasm. When they found out that Phil was a

ribosome and that I got to be an endoplasmic reticulum,

they started to get pretty darn jealous. Then Jonathan

started to develop a bunch of qualifications you had to

meet in order to actually become a part of the cell and

not just be floating around.

82 | The Revolt of the Golgi Bodies

One guy, Harry, really wanted to be an endoplasmic

reticulum like I was, but Jonathan told him, “No way.”

However, he promised Harry could be a ribosome if he

wore a Groucho Marx mask to class one day—you know,

one of those dopey pair of fake eyeglasses with the fake

eyebrows, mustache, and nose. Well, Harry was normally

a rather studious guy, but I guess Mr. Hackney’s boredom

really got to him, so he figured he’d try it. At least it

would liven up the class, and maybe he could move up to

ribosome. Well, Harry did it, and since he sat in the back

of the room and Mr. Hackney’s eyesight was pretty bad,

Mr. Hackney didn’t even notice. Of course, the whole

class was snickering and laughing throughout the entire

hour. One guy, Jimmy, asked a really complex question—

we suspected Harry had recruited him to distract Mr.

Hackney—and dumb Mr. Hackney tried for almost the

whole class to answer the stupid question. All the while,

Harry was sitting in the back with his Groucho Marx

mask, totally unnoticed by Mr. Hackney. At the end of

the class, Jonathan conducted a little ceremony in the

hall, in which he not only promoted Harry all the way

to endoplasmic reticulum but also promoted Jimmy to

ribosome.

The next day, after biology class, Jonathan gave me

a promotion to mitochondrion and moved up Phil to

endoplasmic reticulum. After all, it was only fair since he

had now promoted other people.

Those types of stunts started to become a regular thing

in our class. Somebody would ask to be a ribosome or an

endoplasmic reticulum, and Jonathan would devise some

task he would make the person do to earn the position.

It was usually something really ridulous that would crack

up the class. Jonathan made one girl burp three times at

specific times during class in order to be a ribosome. She

did it. He made one guy hold three pencils in his teeth

for an entire class to be an endoplasmic reticulum. He did

it. Jonathan made another guy cough every two minutes

to be a ribosome. He did it. He made one guy and girl sit

through an entire class holding hands, with their hands

on their desk, even though they couldn’t stand each other,

just to be ribosomes. They did it. He made one kid sit

through the entire class with a Mets baseball cap on,

and when Mr. Hackney asked him to take it off, he was

required to say that his mother made him wear it because

he had a head cold. Mr. Hackney let him wear the cap.

Eventually, just about everybody in the class did

something to earn the status of a ribosome or endoplasmic

reticulum. Jonathan also made four kids Golgi bodies.

They were the kids in the class who wanted to move

out of the cytoplasm but whom Jonathan couldn’t stand.

At first, nobody really knew that Golgi bodies were any

different from ribosomes. Jonathan then set a deadline

for all other kids in the class who were still floating in the

cell to perform a certain task, or else they’d be squished

through the cell wall and banished forever. Jonathan

picked a date for each kid. He said that on that date,

during Mr. Hackney’s class, they were required to ask

Mr. Hackney a simple question, and when Mr. Hackney

answered it, they were required to say, “Sock it to me,

baby,” just like Judy Carne and Goldie Hawn did on the

84 | The Revolt of the Golgi Bodies

show Laugh-In. Now, it really wasn’t a difficult task, but

most of those kids were the smartest and most studious

in the class. They hardly ever screwed around at all;

all they ever did was answer the hardest questions Mr.

Hackney asked and get an A+ on every test. However,

even those kids agreed that Mr. Hackney was the most

boring teacher in the entire universe. They realized what

a horrible punishment it would be to be expelled from

the cell, and they probably thought it might look bad on

their record when they applied for college. So day by day,

each one of the supersmart kids calmly—without much

emotion and without laughing or anything—said, “Sock

it to me, baby,” to Mr. Hackney after he answered his or

her question.

When the first kid said it, Mr. Hackney kind of raised

one eyebrow and then ignored it, as if he hadn’t heard

anything. The rest of us were busting a gut trying not to

laugh out loud. The next day, when another smart kid

calmly said, “Sock it to me, baby,” Mr. Hackney said,

“Excuse me. What was that?”

The kid was super cool about it and just said, “Oh,

nothing. I didn’t say anything.” Mr. Hackney kind of

raised his eyebrow again but then went on with his lesson.

Finally, when the last kid said it the next day, Mr. Hackney

looked downright pissed off, and old Mr. Hackney was

usually too boring to even get mad.

“What was that remark?” he asked sharply.

The girl who’d said it got real nervous and didn’t know

what to say, but Jonathan came to the rescue and, in his 

best blacknosing voice, said, “Excuse me, Mr. Hackney.

The young lady said, ‘Sock it to me, baby,’ which is a new

slang term that the young adolescents are using these days

to express praise for a job well done. She was merely trying

to say thank you, sir, and well done.”

Mr. Hackney stared at Jonathan and raised both

eyebrows. Luckily, just then, the bell rang, and there was

the usual confusion as everybody got up to head to the

next class. Mr. Hackney just stood there at the head of

the class with both eyebrows raised, kind of in a trance.

Everybody got out of that class as quickly as possible

because we were all splitting a gut trying to hold our

laughter. The whole class was out of the cytoplasm and

happy in their new roles as part of the cell. There were now

nineteen ribosomes, five Golgi bodies, seven endoplasmic

reticuli, and one mitochondrion, and of course, Jonathan

was the nucleus. We were all just one happy cell until

Jonathan found out that his cell’s reputation had spread

so far that kids from other classes wanted to get into the

cell. Jonathan was faced with an entirely new dilemma.

Frankie was the first person outside of our biology

class to express an interest in being in the cell. He said his

class was studying the cell too, and he thought it would be

totally neat to be part of a real live cell. Of course, Frankie

always wanted to stick his nose into everything. I told him

Jonathan controlled who was in the cell, so Frankie would

have to ask Jonathan. Well, Frankie and about four other

kids from Frankie’s biology class did just that.

Jonathan got ahold of me and Phil and said he had a

real serious problem. It was rare for Jonathan to be serious

about any problem, but this time, he seemed genuinely

concerned. Jonathan said that not only had Frankie and

some of Frankie’s friends asked to be in the cell, but

some of his friends had too. He said this was a major

policy question for the cell, and the whole future of the

cell rested on his decision. Jonathan said he’d spent all

night trying to make a decision, and after many hours of

anguish, he’d decided he would have to do what any other

modern American leader would do: appoint a committee

to study the issue.

He decided he would put Phil and me on the

committee, and in addition, he had made a truly

momentous decision: he was going to allow Phil and me to

go into the nucleus of the cell with him. At first, I thought

the whole thing was pretty darn funny, but Jonathan was

dead serious about it, so Phil and I just kind of said, “Yeah.

Hey, sure. That would be an honor.” Then Jonathan said

that Phil and I would both be appointed to the secondhighest

position in the entire cell, the nucleolus. Our

first assignment as members of the nucleolus would be to

meet with Jonathan to decide how to allow outsiders into

the cell—what qualifications we would require and what

tasks the outsiders would need to perform in order to be

admitted into the cell. Jonathan then scheduled a meeting

of his nucleolus committee for lunchtime the next day in

the school parking lot. Phil and I said, “Okay, fine.” We

both thought Jonathan was taking things a little too far,

but then again, we both agreed it was quite an honor to

be in the nucleus of the cell, even though I kind of liked

 being a mitochondrion.

When we had the meeting, I could see that Jonathan

was dead serious again. He said that many momentous

decisions had been made throughout the course of

history—like when Lincoln freed the slaves, when the

Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or when the Chicago

Cubs traded Lou Brock to the Cardinals—and that some

of those decisions were the right thing to do, like freeing

the slaves, but some things hadn’t turned out too well, like

for the Japs attacking Pearl Harbor and especially for the

Cubs trading Lou Brock. So he said we had better take

some time to consider this problem and make sure we

didn’t do something we would regret.

I said that we should just let anybody in who wanted

to get in, but then Phil said he thought we should be a

little bit careful about who we let in. He said Frankie

had been hanging out with some pretty weird people

these days and we shouldn’t let just anybody in. Jonathan

suggested we devise an admission test, but I said that

with a test, we’d be just like some stupid teachers. Who

wanted to take any more tests? Jonathan then said that

maybe we should just let anybody into the cell as long as

the person was our friend and was taking biology. After

all, someone in biology class would be able to appreciate

what a cell was and would have had to spend all that time

being bored studying it.

Then Phil suggested we let all our friends in, provided

they were taking biology and were in the tenth grade. I

said that they had to be going to our school, and Jonathan

had one more requirement: all new members who entered

the cell would be assigned the position of Golgi body. We

all agreed it only made sense that if we allowed anybody

through the cell wall, the person would have to start at

the bottom as a Golgi body and work his or her way up.

We didn’t realize then that we might as well have decided

to bomb Pearl Harbor.