Range Life

By my senior year of college I hated all my classes, but there was one English class that I especially despised. The instructor, Dr. Bednarz, was creepy. He had a Ned Flanders-like mustache and wore cotton sweaters and black jeans, and something about him indicated he probably slept with his students. The girls in the class were shrill and dim, and I was pretty sure one of the guys was literally retarded. I rarely showed up. One day after missing a week and a half of classes I forced myself to make an appearance only to discover we were having a quiz that day. I bombed in spectacular fashion. I vowed it would never happen again, even though I continued to skip classes. Sometimes you make vows just to feel like you're actually doing something.

In law school I never missed class, and I always showed up hyper-prepared. Except once. It happened in Contracts. The instructor called my name, and I came very close to throwing my hands in the air and exclaiming "THE ONE TIME!" I'd always inwardly sneered whenever any of my sectionmates had been caught unprepared, and now I could sense everyone inwardly sneering at me when I announced, "I'm sorry, I'm not prepared to discuss this particular case." I suppose I deserved it because I'd always done more outward sneering than inward sneering. I vowed I'd never come to class unprepared again, and I actually stuck to it. Lot of fucking good it did me in my later career as a law school non-graduate.

Tonight in my media management class I sat down and promptly fell asleep with my eyes open as our instructor asked us, "So, what's going on in the world?" I sneered at the girl who brought up the media coverage surrounding all the hit TV shows going off the air after this season, and then I let my mind wander and I thought about the counter guy who took my order at Taco Bell today, and how he told the guy behind him who was mopping the floor, "Hurry up and make this order before you wash your hands," and I stood there thinking, "Did I hear that right?" And then suddenly the instructor was reminding us that he'd asked us last week to come to class tonight prepared to do a ten-minute presentation on our seminar paper topic, and I cursed myself for missing last week's class. Because of where I was sitting at the table, it was obvious I was going to be the third person to speak. I came up with a topic fairly quick, but by the time the second person was almost done talking I suddenly remembered I was in a management class, and the topic I'd just come up with was now useless. So when the instructor turned to me and asked, "What do you got for me?" I answered at the same time the idea actually formed in my head.

And then I came home and realized I'd promised in my previous post that I'd update by Thursday. Today. Thankfully, it's a fucking blog. I'm not getting fucking graded or anything.

So, here, take a look at the saddest thing in the world -- the single guy's refrigerator (the left side of the fridge is my roommate's; he might be an even sorrier bastard than I am):