Dangerous Words #1: Cholesterol

One day, in my high school aesthetics class, the teacher put an egg on the table. The assignment: to compile a list of words that described it. From there, we each chose the one word from our list that we liked the most. These words were written on the board, so that we could use them to write a poem. One of my classmates looked at the texture, choosing “matte” as his word. Other students went deeper, choosing “birth” or “life.” The list continued in this fashion until it came time for me to share my contribution: “cholesterol.”
A whole three syllables longer than most of its rivals, my word stuck out. My classmates complained that I was not taking the assignment seriously enough, as if thinking deeply requires us to forget such serious health risks as high cholesterol. Also, I’m willing to bet that the particular egg was from an egg carton bought at the grocery store, and therefore held more cholesterol than it did “life.” If I’m wrong I have to wonder, why was that egg out on the table and not under its mother or in an incubator? Should we allow a teacher to sacrifice a the life of a chicken for a class assignment? How far is too far when it comes to high school, poem-writing exercises?
At first the word was simply laughed at, but the humor evaporated when the class was put to the task of producing a few short lines of verse. Cholesterol went about systematically murdering any beauty in each of my classmates’ poems. Objections were raised and cholesterol was quickly demoted to the degrading status of optional. While the class viewed this as a victory over me, I only saw it as proof of their inadequacy as poets.