While he pens an excuse to withdraw from a community project, a biology professor reflects on other times he avoided confrontation and ruminates on unresolved dilemmas in his life.

An academic prides herself in her powers of observation, but finds herself unable to change the fate of those suffering around her—whether it be a microscopic rotifer in biology lab, a long-dead boy whose letters she reads from the 1800s, or her twenty-one-year old cousin.

In his new job as an English professor, Tarzan finds himself annoyed by his students, hounded by his department chair, and alienated by the world around him, with solace only from his girlfriend Jane. Naturally, hijinks ensue.

When he comes back home from work to find that his wife has been cheating on him, a mad scientist builds a time machine to go back in time and ensure that her mother never gives birth to her, but things don’t turn out as expected.

When a young father is hired for an English instructorship position, he struggles to balance playing the role of a teacher and meeting the university’s demands for a published scholar.

A professor of neurobiology describes to horrified police officers how he snapped under his famous physicist wife's controlling tendencies and murdered her.

A professor who studies sexual selection tries to justify his own failed marriage with the flawed mating selection of female fruit flies.

When a sixty-nine-year old high school teacher's elm tree is infested with insects, the man does everything he can to save the tree, even going so low as to sabotage his neighbor.

When a charismatic new econ history teacher moves in next door and gains a mass following at an Ohio university, the physical education instructor wonders if he is really worth the hype.

A man intently studies extinct mammals to escape his wife and mistress, who often vent to him about their daily worries and give him anxiety.