> Be 19
> Hungry after working out
> Get to dining hall and grab tray
> Get grapes and applesauce in a bowl and a glass of a smoothie
> It's called "Strawberry Landslide"
> Don't notice the foreshadowing
> Go to dinner line
> Set tray on ledge and wait for line to move
> Hungry, eat a grape
> Tastes good
> Go for another grape
> Grape falls out of mouth
> Attempt to catch it
> Punch tray off ledge accidentally
> Everything goes flying
> "Strawberry Landslide" hits my shorts
> Like a landslide down my entire leg
> Smoothie glass hits ground, glass shatters
> Managed to catch the grape though
> Clean up while everyone looks
> Bend down to wipe my leg
> Spaghetti falls out of my pocket
> Everything's cleaned up, go get another smoothie
> Almost drop this one as the server hands it to me
> Mumble apology
> She says "Wat?"
> "Sorry, I think my feet smell like strawberries now."
> Walk away
I've already written the sequel:
> Never go to ECV again
Friday, April 27, 2012
Friday, April 13, 2012
Luxurious Feet
How luxurious is the life that you are living right now?
There is a pretty simple way to determine just how well off you are in life, and I'll lead you there. But first I'm going to be annoying and answer the question above before you get a chance to answer it yourself. I'll make it even more annoying and point out that the above question was actually rhetorical, so there's not really any need for me to be answering it. And to top it all off, I'll do the most annoying thing and answer that question with a question.
 |
| "Yo dawg, I heard you like questions so I questioned your question with a question." |
Instead of asking how luxurious you think your life is, what you should really be asking yourself is this: How comfortable are my feet right now?
Foot comfort is the most underrated indicator of how well off someone is. Now, I don't know your feet personally (although they seem very nice..maybe you can introduce us next time we see each other? ..nofootfetish), but I can confidently guess that they are at least pretty comfortable right now.
There is also the negative connotation with the phrase, "He's got cold/itchy feet." This implies that the person is not satisfied with their life and decides to make a change. Either that or they actually have athlete's foot, but neither interpretation seems to indicate a particularly luxurious lifestyle.
It's different than treating other parts of your body nicely. In most cases, you're required by society to give your torso a shirt (maybe you'll even throw a jacket or hoodie on top of that shirt) and your legs some pants/shorts. You can slip your shoes off while sitting in church, but if you decide to slip off your pants it's suddenly some kind of offense. Maybe blasphemy. Some people choose to spoil their ears, bellybuttons, and fingers with jewelry. Hands are washed several times during the day, and sometimes the hair on your head is brushed just as often. Even armpits are treated like kings compared to feet; at least they get deodorant to keep them from smelling bad.
So what do feet get? They get sweaty from the suffocating socks and sneakers we shove them in. And then we stand on them all day.
 |
| The internet's saddest foot. |
Feet are supposed to be tough, though. They have to support your entire body weight while you stand and take an even worse pounding if you start running. Over the course of a day, your feet have to tolerate nearly 1,000 tons of force. Tell that to your lousy back when it starts getting sore after you sit down for too long.
This is what makes feet such a good indicator of how well off someone is. Society demands that the other parts of your body be taken care of first, so that is where most of the attention goes. Imagine how successful a person would have to be in life to pamper their feet. How much money, free time, and resources it would take to treat feet like they deserve. How much money would have to be available for you to go get daily pedicures? Think about how wealthy would you have to be before you could buy servants and force them to give you foot massages (This is the only way to get someone to give you a foot massage). It would take a lot of time away from work to wash your feet several times a day; it's not the most convenient thing in the world to do. Could you afford to do that? It would cost so much just to have comfortable feet. Now when you look at someone and see that his feet are wrapped with silk and he has people employed to fan, massage, and offer complements to them you will know that that man is living the dream.
I don't know how to end this post about feet, so here are feet at the end of a post.
Monday, April 2, 2012
True Story: Pt. 4
He awoke again. He was still in the uncomfortable leather couch, and the sun was no longer shining through the window. It was fairly dark outside.
"Uhh..how long have I been here?" he asked, looking at the therapist. He was a shady man- tall and lanky, like someone had taken a regular-sized man and stretched him out just a little too much. His eyes were set too far back in his head, causing them to be perpetually cast in shadows. They also never seemed to be at ease, and his often-furrowed eyebrows did nothing to make him seemed more relaxed. He was a man who sat still for too long, as if he was constantly planning. But when he did move, he was a man who moved too quickly, like he didn't want to be caught. It was uncomfortable to be around him, and if any description could completely sum him up, it was that his fingernails were long and dirty.
He pressed his hands together and paused, clicking his nails together for effect. The pause had lasted about three seconds too long before he took in a slow breath to answer. "About three hours," he said. He felt his bangs brush on his forehead and quickly slicked them back over his head. It was an action that he repeated many times during the day, and it was also an action that gave his thin, black hair a greasy shine.
"Where's my mom?" the lifeguard asked, assuming that that was how he got to the therapist's office.
"She's outside," the therapist answered, and after a little pause he added, "Waiting."
"Oh."
"Oh?"
No response came from the lifeguard, giving that thread of conversation a fairly bad ending. If he was going to have any kind of success, the therapist was going to have to try harder.
"Here. Why don't you sit up?" he offered. "Sometimes that couch can get a little..." there was a pause.. "Uncomfortable." The therapist liked the idea of his speech carrying some weight, but he never realized that he often landed too hard on his adjectives, making them seem unnecessarily sinister.
The lifeguard liked that idea, and he tried to sit up. This is when he encountered the most baffling event known to mankind: The Process of Getting Skin Off of Leather Furniture.
For several thousand years, humans have sat down on leather furniture only to remember in fear that they would have to get up at some point in the future. They knew that they would have to experience the pain of ripping their skin from the leather, and regret would sink in immediately. As a result, we as a species have been looking for an explanation of why this happens for only a day less than leather furniture has existed.
The most recent study, which was conducted during the most dangerous time to sit on leather (last summer), has been considered one of the most successful and in-depth studies on this subject. A few furniture companies gathered funds for three researchers: a chemist, a physicist, and a philosopher. Together, they spent six weeks in isolation, sitting on leather couches, making observations, getting off the couches, and making more observations. When the company presidents arrived at the end of the summer, they found the couches ripped to shreds and the physicist huddled in the corner, muttering softly. The chemist and philosopher had had a falling-out over conflicting ideas, and odd substances were covering the walls. Concerned but determined, the presidents escorted the researchers to a highly publicized meeting to announce the results.
"So," the presidents asked, "Why does skin stick so firmly to leather?" The attending crowd held its breath. The chemist answered first.
"Well, its obvious that some chemical reaction occurs to bond the skin to the leather," he stated, glaring at the philosopher. The crowd cheered, finally in possession of an answer. The philosopher spoke up.
"Actually, I think it's pretty obvious that the skin and leather fall in love and never want to separate from each other." The women in the crowd gave a collective "Aww.." Everyone looked at the physicist, expectantly. Up until this point, he had been shaking and whimpering to himself. He froze as the crowd turned to him. After a few moments, the presidents asked him again, "Why does skin stick to leather?"
His eyes grew wide, as if remembering a repressed memory. He began vibrating vigorously and his breaths came in very shallow bursts. They pressed him again for an answer, eager to hear his response. He put his hands over his ears, shaking his head from side to side. "Quarks!" he quacked, and collapsed back into his seat. The crowd gave a collective "Hmm.."
The meeting pressed on and the presidents opened up the floor for questions from the audience. A woman stepped forward and asked, "It doesn't make sense though. Our skin gets slightly wet from being on leather too long. Why do we still stick to leather even if there's a liquid- I'm pretty sure it's sweat- on our bodies?" The crowd cheered, having wondered the same thing.
The philosopher jumped to answer first. He fired a nasty glance at the chemist before answering, "It's clearly a by-product of the skin/leather romance, not sweat. And that just helps it become stickier while the skin and leather cling to each other, not wanting to lose their love." The women in the audience began fanning themselves.
"No, no, no!" The chemist stamped his feet. "That's not it at all! It's just a liquid that's formed during the chemical reaction that bonds the skin to the leather!" Out of politeness, the crowd offered the physicist a chance to answer. He pulled at the skin underneath his eyes, screaming. As more and more eyes fell on him, he popped out of his chair and began running around the meeting room. Suddenly, he stopped and looked at the crowd. They gave a collective "Well...?" and he lost it. He ran up to the audience, pulled out his hair, and threw it into the crowd. He laughed a maniac's laugh and sprinted out of the room. A riot ensued.
Of course, none of this mattered to the lifeguard at this moment. The only thing he could concentrate on was trying to slowly lift himself and keep his skin on his body at the same time. By some miracle, he managed to succeed and turned to face the therapist.
"So, tell me," the man began, "What is your name?"
"I don't want to say."
"Why not?"
"Because I just don't like telling people my name, that's why."
"But," began the therapist, "What if someone had to write a story about you? Don't you think that it would get rather difficult for the author to distinguish you from other males in the story?"
"I don't care!"
He sighed. Then he stood up. He did cartwheels around the office and proclaimed his love for the Backstreet Boys, happy that no one could ever really know which one of them was actually doing this. Then, after getting dizzy, he decided he needed a breath of fresh air and went outside. While out there, he mugged an old woman, killed a man, and shot a gun into the air. Having had his fun, he decided to go back into the office to let the therapy session continue. (A few weeks later, both the lifeguard and the therapist would be tried in court, facing an eye witness testimony. The trial broke down, however, as the witness cried, "I honestly can't tell which of them did it! I was hoping that all the other suspects would be women so I could just say 'He did it!' I'm so sorry!" They were both set free.)
"Well, let's continue then," the therapist said. "Can you tell me why you don't like telling others your name?"
"It's an ugly name and I hate it."
"Can you just write it down for me, please?" he begged.
"Fine, hand me that paper." The lifeguard took a pencil, grabbed the paper, and begrudgingly began to scribble his name. It was very messy, as he avoided writing his name for anyone. He handed it to the therapist, looking down at the floor in defeat.
Anxiously, he took the paper and read what was written. It was tough to understand, but he managed to read out, "Cleatus..." His brows furrowed farther than normal. "....Haggits...Cleatus Haggis...Haggins? Cleatus Haggins?" The therapist could barely hold back his airy chuckles.
"YES! YOU CAN STOP NOW!"
"I'm sorry, but that's just.." a pause for unnecessary and sinister emphasis, "..ridiculous."
"I know."
"What was your mother thinking?"
"I don't know."
"You know you can change it... right?"
"I know."
"Or are you not old enough yet? I can't remember.."
"I don't know."
For a guy who was paid to ask questions, the therapist was asking the least helpful ones possible. He noticed this and took a break to try to get the session back on track. He paused long enough to click his nails together and brush back his bangs again.
"Okay, can you tell me anything about what happened today?"
Haggins told him everything he knew, which wasn't much. But it was more than the therapist knew. He talked about the girls from the pool, he summarized what he knew about the man that had driven in front of him, and- holding back the tears of lost love- admitted what had happened in the classroom earlier that day.
The therapist was shocked, but managed to keep an open mind. He calmly reflected on what he had just heard, trying to use it and dive inside the boy's mind. An idea abruptly forced its way into his head. "You said you hate English? And that you never paid attention during any English class ever?" he asked Haggins.
"Yeah."
"I'm going to have you take a little test," he began, "and then we can see if my theory is....correct." The hesitation was intended for dramatic effect, but just made the whole situation feel more dangerous to Haggins than it should have been.
He gulped. "Oh..o..o-okay."
The test mainly consisted of questions about English terms along with basic intelligence questions. Of course, Cleatus Haggins missed every single question, which is what the therapist was hoping for. Now he could tie it all together. He just needed to be completely sure before revealing what he had discovered.
"You swear that you answered each question as best as you could?" he asked. Haggins told him that he tried his best on each question, and that he was expecting to get a passing grade. "Well, I've got some shocking news for you," the therapist stated. "You're as dumb as a sack of rocks."
"That test was stupid anyway! Why did you even ask me any of those questions? They didn't help me at all, and that is what therapy is for!" Haggins shouted, slightly offended.
"They did help, Cleatus," the therapist insisted.
"DON'T SAY MY NAME!"
"I'm sorry. But they helped. I know what's happening with you."
This caught his attention. He cocked his head in interest at the therapist. "Well...?"
"Your problem is this: You are so incredibly dumb that you don't know the difference between a simile and a metaphor!" the therapist exclaimed.
"What does that have to do with anything?!" Cleatus lowered his head into his hands. He was hoping for a more concrete problem to be fixed. Something that would require shots or pills, not this.
"Don't you see? You're so dumb that whenever you create a simile, it becomes a metaphor because, to you, the two are interchangeable! This is astounding!" The therapist was on the verge of jumping around his office in excitement.
"No, I don't see."
"Oh, that's right. Well, basically, you can alter reality. It's..." The therapist knew which word came next, he was just waiting for the right time to say it, which at this point had been about four seconds ago. "..Incredible."
"Not credible?"
The therapist buried his face in his hands and sighed. "You're worse off than I thought."
"But other peoples' metaphors don't come to life, right?" Haggins noted.
"You're also so stupid that you don't know what 'literal' means," the therapist explained.
"Ah. How can I fix this?"
The therapist started to answer, but something held him back. He furrowed his brows again. An idea drifted across his mind. Plans began to form. He tapped his dirty nails on the desk as he thought to himself. He had almost just defined the terms for Cleatus Haggins, but then he thought better of it. He could use this.
"I'm sorry. There is nothing we can do at the moment to solve this." The therapist feigned regret. Then he faked a spark of hopefulness on his face. "But, maybe if you continue your sessions I can find a solution. And don't worry, I won't be charging for them. We also won't spend every session in the office; we'll need to get outside some."
Haggins paused, unsure of whether he trusted this man or not. "Why?" he asked.
"To do research, of course!" the therapist lied.
Cleatus Haggins was still skeptical. He thought it over many times. On one hand, this man was incredibly off-putting, but on the other hand, he just wanted to be normal again. He reluctantly agreed to the extra therapy sessions. The therapist let a smirk creep across his face.
"Don't worry," he assured, clicking his long, dirty fingernails together. "This will be..."
A pause.
"...Fun."
"Uhh..how long have I been here?" he asked, looking at the therapist. He was a shady man- tall and lanky, like someone had taken a regular-sized man and stretched him out just a little too much. His eyes were set too far back in his head, causing them to be perpetually cast in shadows. They also never seemed to be at ease, and his often-furrowed eyebrows did nothing to make him seemed more relaxed. He was a man who sat still for too long, as if he was constantly planning. But when he did move, he was a man who moved too quickly, like he didn't want to be caught. It was uncomfortable to be around him, and if any description could completely sum him up, it was that his fingernails were long and dirty.
He pressed his hands together and paused, clicking his nails together for effect. The pause had lasted about three seconds too long before he took in a slow breath to answer. "About three hours," he said. He felt his bangs brush on his forehead and quickly slicked them back over his head. It was an action that he repeated many times during the day, and it was also an action that gave his thin, black hair a greasy shine.
"Where's my mom?" the lifeguard asked, assuming that that was how he got to the therapist's office.
"She's outside," the therapist answered, and after a little pause he added, "Waiting."
"Oh."
"Oh?"
No response came from the lifeguard, giving that thread of conversation a fairly bad ending. If he was going to have any kind of success, the therapist was going to have to try harder.
"Here. Why don't you sit up?" he offered. "Sometimes that couch can get a little..." there was a pause.. "Uncomfortable." The therapist liked the idea of his speech carrying some weight, but he never realized that he often landed too hard on his adjectives, making them seem unnecessarily sinister.
The lifeguard liked that idea, and he tried to sit up. This is when he encountered the most baffling event known to mankind: The Process of Getting Skin Off of Leather Furniture.
For several thousand years, humans have sat down on leather furniture only to remember in fear that they would have to get up at some point in the future. They knew that they would have to experience the pain of ripping their skin from the leather, and regret would sink in immediately. As a result, we as a species have been looking for an explanation of why this happens for only a day less than leather furniture has existed.
The most recent study, which was conducted during the most dangerous time to sit on leather (last summer), has been considered one of the most successful and in-depth studies on this subject. A few furniture companies gathered funds for three researchers: a chemist, a physicist, and a philosopher. Together, they spent six weeks in isolation, sitting on leather couches, making observations, getting off the couches, and making more observations. When the company presidents arrived at the end of the summer, they found the couches ripped to shreds and the physicist huddled in the corner, muttering softly. The chemist and philosopher had had a falling-out over conflicting ideas, and odd substances were covering the walls. Concerned but determined, the presidents escorted the researchers to a highly publicized meeting to announce the results.
"So," the presidents asked, "Why does skin stick so firmly to leather?" The attending crowd held its breath. The chemist answered first.
"Well, its obvious that some chemical reaction occurs to bond the skin to the leather," he stated, glaring at the philosopher. The crowd cheered, finally in possession of an answer. The philosopher spoke up.
"Actually, I think it's pretty obvious that the skin and leather fall in love and never want to separate from each other." The women in the crowd gave a collective "Aww.." Everyone looked at the physicist, expectantly. Up until this point, he had been shaking and whimpering to himself. He froze as the crowd turned to him. After a few moments, the presidents asked him again, "Why does skin stick to leather?"
His eyes grew wide, as if remembering a repressed memory. He began vibrating vigorously and his breaths came in very shallow bursts. They pressed him again for an answer, eager to hear his response. He put his hands over his ears, shaking his head from side to side. "Quarks!" he quacked, and collapsed back into his seat. The crowd gave a collective "Hmm.."
The meeting pressed on and the presidents opened up the floor for questions from the audience. A woman stepped forward and asked, "It doesn't make sense though. Our skin gets slightly wet from being on leather too long. Why do we still stick to leather even if there's a liquid- I'm pretty sure it's sweat- on our bodies?" The crowd cheered, having wondered the same thing.
The philosopher jumped to answer first. He fired a nasty glance at the chemist before answering, "It's clearly a by-product of the skin/leather romance, not sweat. And that just helps it become stickier while the skin and leather cling to each other, not wanting to lose their love." The women in the audience began fanning themselves.
"No, no, no!" The chemist stamped his feet. "That's not it at all! It's just a liquid that's formed during the chemical reaction that bonds the skin to the leather!" Out of politeness, the crowd offered the physicist a chance to answer. He pulled at the skin underneath his eyes, screaming. As more and more eyes fell on him, he popped out of his chair and began running around the meeting room. Suddenly, he stopped and looked at the crowd. They gave a collective "Well...?" and he lost it. He ran up to the audience, pulled out his hair, and threw it into the crowd. He laughed a maniac's laugh and sprinted out of the room. A riot ensued.
Of course, none of this mattered to the lifeguard at this moment. The only thing he could concentrate on was trying to slowly lift himself and keep his skin on his body at the same time. By some miracle, he managed to succeed and turned to face the therapist.
"So, tell me," the man began, "What is your name?"
"I don't want to say."
"Why not?"
"Because I just don't like telling people my name, that's why."
"But," began the therapist, "What if someone had to write a story about you? Don't you think that it would get rather difficult for the author to distinguish you from other males in the story?"
"I don't care!"
He sighed. Then he stood up. He did cartwheels around the office and proclaimed his love for the Backstreet Boys, happy that no one could ever really know which one of them was actually doing this. Then, after getting dizzy, he decided he needed a breath of fresh air and went outside. While out there, he mugged an old woman, killed a man, and shot a gun into the air. Having had his fun, he decided to go back into the office to let the therapy session continue. (A few weeks later, both the lifeguard and the therapist would be tried in court, facing an eye witness testimony. The trial broke down, however, as the witness cried, "I honestly can't tell which of them did it! I was hoping that all the other suspects would be women so I could just say 'He did it!' I'm so sorry!" They were both set free.)
"Well, let's continue then," the therapist said. "Can you tell me why you don't like telling others your name?"
"It's an ugly name and I hate it."
"Can you just write it down for me, please?" he begged.
"Fine, hand me that paper." The lifeguard took a pencil, grabbed the paper, and begrudgingly began to scribble his name. It was very messy, as he avoided writing his name for anyone. He handed it to the therapist, looking down at the floor in defeat.
Anxiously, he took the paper and read what was written. It was tough to understand, but he managed to read out, "Cleatus..." His brows furrowed farther than normal. "....Haggits...Cleatus Haggis...Haggins? Cleatus Haggins?" The therapist could barely hold back his airy chuckles.
"YES! YOU CAN STOP NOW!"
"I'm sorry, but that's just.." a pause for unnecessary and sinister emphasis, "..ridiculous."
"I know."
"What was your mother thinking?"
"I don't know."
"You know you can change it... right?"
"I know."
"Or are you not old enough yet? I can't remember.."
"I don't know."
For a guy who was paid to ask questions, the therapist was asking the least helpful ones possible. He noticed this and took a break to try to get the session back on track. He paused long enough to click his nails together and brush back his bangs again.
"Okay, can you tell me anything about what happened today?"
Haggins told him everything he knew, which wasn't much. But it was more than the therapist knew. He talked about the girls from the pool, he summarized what he knew about the man that had driven in front of him, and- holding back the tears of lost love- admitted what had happened in the classroom earlier that day.
The therapist was shocked, but managed to keep an open mind. He calmly reflected on what he had just heard, trying to use it and dive inside the boy's mind. An idea abruptly forced its way into his head. "You said you hate English? And that you never paid attention during any English class ever?" he asked Haggins.
"Yeah."
"I'm going to have you take a little test," he began, "and then we can see if my theory is....correct." The hesitation was intended for dramatic effect, but just made the whole situation feel more dangerous to Haggins than it should have been.
He gulped. "Oh..o..o-okay."
The test mainly consisted of questions about English terms along with basic intelligence questions. Of course, Cleatus Haggins missed every single question, which is what the therapist was hoping for. Now he could tie it all together. He just needed to be completely sure before revealing what he had discovered.
"You swear that you answered each question as best as you could?" he asked. Haggins told him that he tried his best on each question, and that he was expecting to get a passing grade. "Well, I've got some shocking news for you," the therapist stated. "You're as dumb as a sack of rocks."
"That test was stupid anyway! Why did you even ask me any of those questions? They didn't help me at all, and that is what therapy is for!" Haggins shouted, slightly offended.
"They did help, Cleatus," the therapist insisted.
"DON'T SAY MY NAME!"
"I'm sorry. But they helped. I know what's happening with you."
This caught his attention. He cocked his head in interest at the therapist. "Well...?"
"Your problem is this: You are so incredibly dumb that you don't know the difference between a simile and a metaphor!" the therapist exclaimed.
"What does that have to do with anything?!" Cleatus lowered his head into his hands. He was hoping for a more concrete problem to be fixed. Something that would require shots or pills, not this.
"Don't you see? You're so dumb that whenever you create a simile, it becomes a metaphor because, to you, the two are interchangeable! This is astounding!" The therapist was on the verge of jumping around his office in excitement.
"No, I don't see."
"Oh, that's right. Well, basically, you can alter reality. It's..." The therapist knew which word came next, he was just waiting for the right time to say it, which at this point had been about four seconds ago. "..Incredible."
"Not credible?"
The therapist buried his face in his hands and sighed. "You're worse off than I thought."
"But other peoples' metaphors don't come to life, right?" Haggins noted.
"You're also so stupid that you don't know what 'literal' means," the therapist explained.
"Ah. How can I fix this?"
The therapist started to answer, but something held him back. He furrowed his brows again. An idea drifted across his mind. Plans began to form. He tapped his dirty nails on the desk as he thought to himself. He had almost just defined the terms for Cleatus Haggins, but then he thought better of it. He could use this.
"I'm sorry. There is nothing we can do at the moment to solve this." The therapist feigned regret. Then he faked a spark of hopefulness on his face. "But, maybe if you continue your sessions I can find a solution. And don't worry, I won't be charging for them. We also won't spend every session in the office; we'll need to get outside some."
Haggins paused, unsure of whether he trusted this man or not. "Why?" he asked.
"To do research, of course!" the therapist lied.
Cleatus Haggins was still skeptical. He thought it over many times. On one hand, this man was incredibly off-putting, but on the other hand, he just wanted to be normal again. He reluctantly agreed to the extra therapy sessions. The therapist let a smirk creep across his face.
"Don't worry," he assured, clicking his long, dirty fingernails together. "This will be..."
A pause.
"...Fun."
Sunday, April 1, 2012
True Story: Pt. 3
He awoke with a thump. This confused him because normally his kitchen table didn't go "thump," and neither did his bed. These were the two places he expected to be after fainting, but it wasn't where he seemed to be at the moment. He opened his eyes to look around, which didn't help much. He was still dazed and his vision was blurry. He tried to get up, only to discover that he was strapped down tightly. His heart dropped down to his feet. He had been slightly worried before this point, but now he found himself panicking. His breaths were short and shallow as beads of sweat began to form on his forehead. Thankfully, he discovered that whoever had tied him up left him the use of his arms. He wiped the sweat off his brow.
"Oh, you're awake," said a wispy voice. It sounded very distant and echoed thinly as his head spun with the effort to focus on it. "Listen, I know you probably won't be happy about this, but it's just something we had to do." The more he listened to the voice, the more it became vaguely familiar.
"Mom?" he asked.
"Yes dear?" she asked in reply.
He tried to take another look around. Doing so, he found himself tightly strapped with a seat belt in his mother's car.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To school, dear. Your father and I talked and we agreed that it was best for you to still go even though you fainted. I know it might seem unfair, but we just don't want you to struggle if you get behind in school work. I hope you understand."
He sighed, partly out of exasperation and partly out of relief that he wasn't being kidnapped.
As they arrived at the school, his mother was doing what all mothers do best: worrying.
"Are you okay? I just feel so bad about making you do this. The more I think about it, the more I think that we should have just let you stay home."
"Mom, I'm fine," he lied.
"It's just that I don't want you walking around feeling sick all day. Did you have enough to eat this weekend? I worried about that while you were lugging around all day Saturday. You barely seemed to eat anything. Maybe that's what's wrong. Did you eat enough for breakfast?"
"Yes," he lied again. He had only managed about three bites of cereal before seeing the newspaper. The thought of it still made him woozy.
"Well if you start feeling faint again, go lie down. I don't want you to hit your head. But promise to call me if you don't feel good, okay?"
"Okay," he lied yet again.
He got out of the car, promising various things to his mother that he likely would not remember within a couple minutes. As she drove off she shouted, "Goodbye honey, I love you!" out of the window for the whole school to hear.
To his relief, the day had passed by normally so far, and it was now lunch. He made it to his classes, listened to the teacher for about ten minutes, and promptly fell asleep. At the beginning of the school year he had felt guilty for sleeping, but he eventually justified it to himself. "I didn't understand the earlier stuff, so why waste my time trying to understand the stuff now and waste the teacher's time with questions?" he would wonder. "Besides, it's worked out so far. I'm a senior, so why change a winning formula?"
He was exactly right, but for the wrong reasons. He failed every single test he had ever taken in high school. He never did his homework, and didn't even know quizzes existed because he slept right through them. His average grade would have only been a ten, due to attendance. Each teacher, though, gave him his own special curve. This was in order to get him our of their class. Now, they knew that this was wrong morally, but this issue wasn't about ethics anymore. It was simply a matter of economics.
"Listen," the superintendent began at a meeting after the boy's freshman year, "I know that everything you've ever been taught is telling you that we have to help this boy. But we simply cannot. He sleeps in every class period, during lunch, and even in detention. And when he sleeps, he drools. A lot. The boy's like a broken faucet. This year alone, he's destroyed two-thousand dollars in textbooks. Remember how we made the mistake of letting him use the computer lab during the first couple weeks? He drooled all over the keyboards of three computers and- only God knows how- directly into the CPU tower of another one of them. All four computers were destroyed. This summer we'll have to get the carpet replaced in every single room he's had for a class because there's mold settling in. Actually, the biology teacher said that it's flourishing. We've wasted too much money calling plumbers on false toilet-flooding alarms because he fell asleep in the bathroom. And I won't even mention the lawsuits we could end up facing if another student slips on one of his drool-puddles in the gym. Do whatever you need to do to get him out of this high school in four years. Our budget can't keep up with the damage he causes."
There were only two classes left. He trudged his way into his English teacher's room and took his seat at the desk with the towels underneath. Ever since he could remember, he had hated English classes. Things like plot, symbolism, and characters bored him to tears, the papers made him frustrated, and the reading put him to sleep. He couldn't remember ever paying attention for more than thirty seconds in any English class he'd ever had. He was actually a little proud of how quickly he could fall asleep in English classes, and tried to beat his time every day. At this point, he was down to about a minute and a half.
He was very determined to beat his record today. As he had entered the room, he was pumping himself up to sleep, which consists of doing things that are the exact opposite of what normally pumps people up. And now, after doing this, he was very enthusiastic about his upcoming sleep. He almost couldn't handle the hype. He could hear the cheers of thousands of imaginary fans egging him on. His classroom had dissolved away and had now become a giant stadium with his desk in the middle. He could hear the PA system announcing his name, but it was barely audible over the screams of all his fans. A spotlight shined down on his desk, and he could picture a squad of cheerleaders by it beaming at him. They shook their pom-poms; they wanted this. He wanted this. The fans wanted this. He envisioned himself raising his arms and looking up, basking in the warm glory. He could do this. He knew he could. He grabbed a microphone, addressing the crowd.
"I'd just like to take a second and thank all my fans out here tonight," he began. "You know, people ask me what it takes to be great at what I do, and at first it was hard to answer them. I could never decide between my dedication, my God-given talent for falling asleep, or anything else like that. But then I realized what it was. All this time, I've never needed any of that; all I've needed was amazing fans like you. You guys are the ones that make this possible, and so today, this record is for you!" He imagined the crowd's cheers to be unbearably loud at this point, with some of the weaker-hearted females even swooning. Roses showered over him as confetti rained down from above. He took a pause, lowering himself to one knee and closing his eyes in concentration. He rose and walked over to his desk. "This is it," he thought as he sat down. He was going to break his record of "Fastest Time to Fall Asleep in Class" in the "Standard Four Legged High School Desks with the Seat Attached and the Book-Cradle Underneath" division (This would be an even bigger accomplishment than getting the record in the "Beanbag Chair in Elementary School Library" division).
Eager to begin sleeping as soon as possible, he put his head down as swiftly as he could.
A loud "thud" rang through the room, followed shortly by an "O...oo-oow." The stadium suddenly disappeared, and the school's classroom rushed back in its place. The entire class turned to look as he cradled his head in his hands. A welt was already starting to form. He quietly moaned for about two minutes- the first minute due to the physical pain, and the second due to the emotional pain he suffered from being ripped away from his adoring fans by reality. Even more unfortunately, he found that it was impossible to fall asleep, as his forehead was bruised and his skull was throbbing. For the first time ever, he was forced to stay awake during an English class.
"Oh my God, this is boring" he thought to himself about halfway through the class. The teacher was droning on about some author. Apparently the guy had written some books and stuff. "Big deal," he thought, "It's not like he's the only one that's ever written a book. There are millions of those." He rolled his eyes and looked around. His eyes drifted forward and slightly to the right, and he was immediately pleased by what they landed on.
She was, in two words, incredibly pretty. If given a few more words, he would have described her as the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life- past, present, and future included. She was slender, but not skinny; feminine, but not girly; her skin was light, but not pale. She had achieved a mesmerizing medium of every desirable trait. Everything about her was perfect, and yet he still sensed modesty- as if she hadn't realized her own beauty. He had realized it, though. It was an innocent beauty, miraculously unspoiled by her time on Earth, and as he gazed at her, it seemed like the world stopped and gazed at her too. He also realized that he had just fallen in love- and he hadn't even seen her face yet.
It was beginning to get warmer in the room. He couldn't tell if it was just him, or if it was actually the room.
As if on cue, she turned around. His heart boiled. He thought he was going to melt as she made eye contact with him. Her eyes seemed to twinkle even in the fluorescent school lighting. A moment later, he felt dripping on his arm. "I...m-..melt," he thought. It was all he could manage at the moment. He sneaked a glance down to double check and realized that he was just drooling. He couldn't stop, but he also couldn't care. He looked back up at her with his mouth gaping open.
"Can someone turn the air conditioning on?" a student asked. "It's really getting hot in here."
He had to win her over, or die trying. He was a man in love. "Mom always says that love makes a man do crazy things," he remembered, "so I have to do something crazy for her. But what should I do?" He was still looking at her, and while she was no longer looking directly at him, he could still see her face. He watched her rub her eyes with the most graceful gesture, and after she was done he was left staring at them.
"I've got to tell her how beautiful she is," he thought, "but how?" The teacher's voice drifted into his conscience. She was still going on about that author, but now she was covering his collection of poems. He knew what he had to do: he was going to write her a poem.
She rubbed her eyes again, less delicately this time. They were watering over and reddening from irritation. The air conditioning problem still hadn't been fixed, and the heat was soaring. Students wiped sweat off of their foreheads and struggled to concentrate on the lesson. If it got any hotter, they might have to leave the room.
He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil, preparing to write the purest love poem in the world. He kept drooling on the paper, though, and soon gave up on the idea of writing it down. He would just have to memorize it and recite it to her. He wondered what his opening line should be. He wanted the poem to be about her and her beauty. His favorite part of her seemed to be her eyes. He was fixated on them, unable to break his gaze. He could slowly begin to feel something familiar. The first line of the poem was coming to him.
She seemed clearly bothered by her eyes now. They were glazed over and becoming bloodshot. "Ow!" she cried. Even while irritated, she had the voice of an angel. "My eyes are burning!" A classmate across the room replied, shouting, "This whole classroom is burning! Can someone open a window?"
As his classmates began panting and shifting around uneasily, he stayed focused on his poem. He stirred his brain for ideas and could feel the first line of his poem arising from the murky depths of his mind. He knew that the first line had to be about her eyes; it was the foundation for a perfect poem.
By now, the classroom was becoming unreasonably hot, and her eyes were bloodshot- although they still twinkled. A group of students had gotten up and were working on opening a window which had rusted shut.
He could feel the line bubbling up. His brain was beginning to boil. It was only a matter of time before he had the poem memorized and the love of his life by his side. He felt an abrupt click in his mind, as if the words he was searching for had forced themselves in. It was decided; his poem would begin with: "Your eyes are like-" His thoughts were interrupted by a scream.
Her eyes were no longer watering, and he was no longer drooling. Her eyes were burning too intensely and evaporating all of the tears her eyes produced. His drool was being evaporated by the room's exponentially rising temperature.
He couldn't hold it in any longer. His brain was seizing with the effort of creating this poem. He jumped up from his desk and bellowed, "Your eyes are like stars!" And with that exclamation, her eyes began the process of nuclear fusion. The room began to incinerate, and the force of the newly born stars- although just the size of human eyeballs- blew him back through the rusty window. He blacked out for a second while laying on the grass outside.
When he regained consciousness, he was could hear the screams of the doomed students stuck inside the room. It was a horrifying experience, and he fainted again.
When he awoke this time, the fire department had arrived and had begun hosing down the classroom. The smell was sickening, and it made him faint.
He came-to a third time. Now, police investigators were surrounding him, asking for details of the incident. He tried to remember, but found that his brain was completely inert. His body decided to follow suit and became inert as well, causing another fainting episode
This time, when he woke up, he was in a therapist's office, laying on an uncomfortable leather couch. He summoned enough energy to claim, "I'm not going crazy" before drifting off again.
"Oh, you're awake," said a wispy voice. It sounded very distant and echoed thinly as his head spun with the effort to focus on it. "Listen, I know you probably won't be happy about this, but it's just something we had to do." The more he listened to the voice, the more it became vaguely familiar.
"Mom?" he asked.
"Yes dear?" she asked in reply.
He tried to take another look around. Doing so, he found himself tightly strapped with a seat belt in his mother's car.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"To school, dear. Your father and I talked and we agreed that it was best for you to still go even though you fainted. I know it might seem unfair, but we just don't want you to struggle if you get behind in school work. I hope you understand."
He sighed, partly out of exasperation and partly out of relief that he wasn't being kidnapped.
As they arrived at the school, his mother was doing what all mothers do best: worrying.
"Are you okay? I just feel so bad about making you do this. The more I think about it, the more I think that we should have just let you stay home."
"Mom, I'm fine," he lied.
"It's just that I don't want you walking around feeling sick all day. Did you have enough to eat this weekend? I worried about that while you were lugging around all day Saturday. You barely seemed to eat anything. Maybe that's what's wrong. Did you eat enough for breakfast?"
"Yes," he lied again. He had only managed about three bites of cereal before seeing the newspaper. The thought of it still made him woozy.
"Well if you start feeling faint again, go lie down. I don't want you to hit your head. But promise to call me if you don't feel good, okay?"
"Okay," he lied yet again.
He got out of the car, promising various things to his mother that he likely would not remember within a couple minutes. As she drove off she shouted, "Goodbye honey, I love you!" out of the window for the whole school to hear.
To his relief, the day had passed by normally so far, and it was now lunch. He made it to his classes, listened to the teacher for about ten minutes, and promptly fell asleep. At the beginning of the school year he had felt guilty for sleeping, but he eventually justified it to himself. "I didn't understand the earlier stuff, so why waste my time trying to understand the stuff now and waste the teacher's time with questions?" he would wonder. "Besides, it's worked out so far. I'm a senior, so why change a winning formula?"
He was exactly right, but for the wrong reasons. He failed every single test he had ever taken in high school. He never did his homework, and didn't even know quizzes existed because he slept right through them. His average grade would have only been a ten, due to attendance. Each teacher, though, gave him his own special curve. This was in order to get him our of their class. Now, they knew that this was wrong morally, but this issue wasn't about ethics anymore. It was simply a matter of economics.
"Listen," the superintendent began at a meeting after the boy's freshman year, "I know that everything you've ever been taught is telling you that we have to help this boy. But we simply cannot. He sleeps in every class period, during lunch, and even in detention. And when he sleeps, he drools. A lot. The boy's like a broken faucet. This year alone, he's destroyed two-thousand dollars in textbooks. Remember how we made the mistake of letting him use the computer lab during the first couple weeks? He drooled all over the keyboards of three computers and- only God knows how- directly into the CPU tower of another one of them. All four computers were destroyed. This summer we'll have to get the carpet replaced in every single room he's had for a class because there's mold settling in. Actually, the biology teacher said that it's flourishing. We've wasted too much money calling plumbers on false toilet-flooding alarms because he fell asleep in the bathroom. And I won't even mention the lawsuits we could end up facing if another student slips on one of his drool-puddles in the gym. Do whatever you need to do to get him out of this high school in four years. Our budget can't keep up with the damage he causes."
There were only two classes left. He trudged his way into his English teacher's room and took his seat at the desk with the towels underneath. Ever since he could remember, he had hated English classes. Things like plot, symbolism, and characters bored him to tears, the papers made him frustrated, and the reading put him to sleep. He couldn't remember ever paying attention for more than thirty seconds in any English class he'd ever had. He was actually a little proud of how quickly he could fall asleep in English classes, and tried to beat his time every day. At this point, he was down to about a minute and a half.
He was very determined to beat his record today. As he had entered the room, he was pumping himself up to sleep, which consists of doing things that are the exact opposite of what normally pumps people up. And now, after doing this, he was very enthusiastic about his upcoming sleep. He almost couldn't handle the hype. He could hear the cheers of thousands of imaginary fans egging him on. His classroom had dissolved away and had now become a giant stadium with his desk in the middle. He could hear the PA system announcing his name, but it was barely audible over the screams of all his fans. A spotlight shined down on his desk, and he could picture a squad of cheerleaders by it beaming at him. They shook their pom-poms; they wanted this. He wanted this. The fans wanted this. He envisioned himself raising his arms and looking up, basking in the warm glory. He could do this. He knew he could. He grabbed a microphone, addressing the crowd.
"I'd just like to take a second and thank all my fans out here tonight," he began. "You know, people ask me what it takes to be great at what I do, and at first it was hard to answer them. I could never decide between my dedication, my God-given talent for falling asleep, or anything else like that. But then I realized what it was. All this time, I've never needed any of that; all I've needed was amazing fans like you. You guys are the ones that make this possible, and so today, this record is for you!" He imagined the crowd's cheers to be unbearably loud at this point, with some of the weaker-hearted females even swooning. Roses showered over him as confetti rained down from above. He took a pause, lowering himself to one knee and closing his eyes in concentration. He rose and walked over to his desk. "This is it," he thought as he sat down. He was going to break his record of "Fastest Time to Fall Asleep in Class" in the "Standard Four Legged High School Desks with the Seat Attached and the Book-Cradle Underneath" division (This would be an even bigger accomplishment than getting the record in the "Beanbag Chair in Elementary School Library" division).
Eager to begin sleeping as soon as possible, he put his head down as swiftly as he could.
A loud "thud" rang through the room, followed shortly by an "O...oo-oow." The stadium suddenly disappeared, and the school's classroom rushed back in its place. The entire class turned to look as he cradled his head in his hands. A welt was already starting to form. He quietly moaned for about two minutes- the first minute due to the physical pain, and the second due to the emotional pain he suffered from being ripped away from his adoring fans by reality. Even more unfortunately, he found that it was impossible to fall asleep, as his forehead was bruised and his skull was throbbing. For the first time ever, he was forced to stay awake during an English class.
"Oh my God, this is boring" he thought to himself about halfway through the class. The teacher was droning on about some author. Apparently the guy had written some books and stuff. "Big deal," he thought, "It's not like he's the only one that's ever written a book. There are millions of those." He rolled his eyes and looked around. His eyes drifted forward and slightly to the right, and he was immediately pleased by what they landed on.
She was, in two words, incredibly pretty. If given a few more words, he would have described her as the most beautiful girl he had ever seen in his life- past, present, and future included. She was slender, but not skinny; feminine, but not girly; her skin was light, but not pale. She had achieved a mesmerizing medium of every desirable trait. Everything about her was perfect, and yet he still sensed modesty- as if she hadn't realized her own beauty. He had realized it, though. It was an innocent beauty, miraculously unspoiled by her time on Earth, and as he gazed at her, it seemed like the world stopped and gazed at her too. He also realized that he had just fallen in love- and he hadn't even seen her face yet.
It was beginning to get warmer in the room. He couldn't tell if it was just him, or if it was actually the room.
As if on cue, she turned around. His heart boiled. He thought he was going to melt as she made eye contact with him. Her eyes seemed to twinkle even in the fluorescent school lighting. A moment later, he felt dripping on his arm. "I...m-..melt," he thought. It was all he could manage at the moment. He sneaked a glance down to double check and realized that he was just drooling. He couldn't stop, but he also couldn't care. He looked back up at her with his mouth gaping open.
"Can someone turn the air conditioning on?" a student asked. "It's really getting hot in here."
He had to win her over, or die trying. He was a man in love. "Mom always says that love makes a man do crazy things," he remembered, "so I have to do something crazy for her. But what should I do?" He was still looking at her, and while she was no longer looking directly at him, he could still see her face. He watched her rub her eyes with the most graceful gesture, and after she was done he was left staring at them.
"I've got to tell her how beautiful she is," he thought, "but how?" The teacher's voice drifted into his conscience. She was still going on about that author, but now she was covering his collection of poems. He knew what he had to do: he was going to write her a poem.
She rubbed her eyes again, less delicately this time. They were watering over and reddening from irritation. The air conditioning problem still hadn't been fixed, and the heat was soaring. Students wiped sweat off of their foreheads and struggled to concentrate on the lesson. If it got any hotter, they might have to leave the room.
He pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil, preparing to write the purest love poem in the world. He kept drooling on the paper, though, and soon gave up on the idea of writing it down. He would just have to memorize it and recite it to her. He wondered what his opening line should be. He wanted the poem to be about her and her beauty. His favorite part of her seemed to be her eyes. He was fixated on them, unable to break his gaze. He could slowly begin to feel something familiar. The first line of the poem was coming to him.
She seemed clearly bothered by her eyes now. They were glazed over and becoming bloodshot. "Ow!" she cried. Even while irritated, she had the voice of an angel. "My eyes are burning!" A classmate across the room replied, shouting, "This whole classroom is burning! Can someone open a window?"
As his classmates began panting and shifting around uneasily, he stayed focused on his poem. He stirred his brain for ideas and could feel the first line of his poem arising from the murky depths of his mind. He knew that the first line had to be about her eyes; it was the foundation for a perfect poem.
By now, the classroom was becoming unreasonably hot, and her eyes were bloodshot- although they still twinkled. A group of students had gotten up and were working on opening a window which had rusted shut.
He could feel the line bubbling up. His brain was beginning to boil. It was only a matter of time before he had the poem memorized and the love of his life by his side. He felt an abrupt click in his mind, as if the words he was searching for had forced themselves in. It was decided; his poem would begin with: "Your eyes are like-" His thoughts were interrupted by a scream.
Her eyes were no longer watering, and he was no longer drooling. Her eyes were burning too intensely and evaporating all of the tears her eyes produced. His drool was being evaporated by the room's exponentially rising temperature.
He couldn't hold it in any longer. His brain was seizing with the effort of creating this poem. He jumped up from his desk and bellowed, "Your eyes are like stars!" And with that exclamation, her eyes began the process of nuclear fusion. The room began to incinerate, and the force of the newly born stars- although just the size of human eyeballs- blew him back through the rusty window. He blacked out for a second while laying on the grass outside.
When he regained consciousness, he was could hear the screams of the doomed students stuck inside the room. It was a horrifying experience, and he fainted again.
When he awoke this time, the fire department had arrived and had begun hosing down the classroom. The smell was sickening, and it made him faint.
He came-to a third time. Now, police investigators were surrounding him, asking for details of the incident. He tried to remember, but found that his brain was completely inert. His body decided to follow suit and became inert as well, causing another fainting episode
This time, when he woke up, he was in a therapist's office, laying on an uncomfortable leather couch. He summoned enough energy to claim, "I'm not going crazy" before drifting off again.
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