I Dare You to Laugh

It's hard to write about anything else.

Too many people died. Too many people lost friends and relatives. Too many people are hurting inside.

Of course, people are hurting everywhere. People are hurting in Bagdad. People are hurting in China. People are hurting in Blacksburg. There's nothing special about hurting. Unfortunately, there's not all that much that's funny about it either, which makes it kind of tough for me to write about the 33 dead at Virginia Tech.
But you know what? Not much else is on my mind.

It's times like this when I miss PIC's Artist Formerly Known as Justin Rebello. If he were still around, he'd find a way to write an angry piece that mocked the victims, the killer, and possibly even Virginia Tech. He'd say something racist and stupid and make us hate him. We would get to transfer the pain for a moment. Instead of just staring at our television screens in rabid awe of the amazing and senseless deaths, we would have someone incite our angry comments about the humanity of it all. Everybody loves a villain because villains allow us an opportunity to unleash acceptable anger. If J-Reb was still tossing around the comedy, we would have a common enemy. And we would all heal quicker as a result.

But he's gone, writing in the real world, where they won't even let him slip in the occasional F word.

(Which is a real shame, because nothing calls for an F word more than mass death. I mean, holy fuck, right?)

The media knows who the (alleged) murderer is now. And (surprise, surprise), he was a loner who felt left out by his fellow classmates. Which just goes to show how much people can suck if given the opportunity. Also, he was an English Major, which makes him about the deadliest English Major since? well, ever. And that's a little funny, but it won't buy a joke today. Not from me, anyway.

I've been thinking for six hours about what to write today. It took me six hours to realize that there was really nothing else to write about. It took me that long to understand and to accept that even I can occasionally be stirred to emotion by an event experienced solely through television and print media (that's not sports-related, anyway). It took me six hours to realize that I hate what happened to these students and teachers, that I can't fathom the pain they must be going through, that I can't even imagine the depression-related ass the male students will be pulling as a result (hey, there's my sense of humor?let the healing begin).

It took me six hours to realize that I can't write about anything else. Not today, anyway.

And now that I'm done saying the little chunk of nothing I have to say about this massacre, I feel that I should leave you with something hilarious. Here it is.

The girl I'm currently seeing prefers sex in public to sex at home.

How's that for reality?
No votes yet

7 Comments

 eve's picture

a friend of mine was actually there. thank god, he got out safe. and all i could think after was, god, people just really suck sometimes.

 Cait's picture

Nate, you are amazing

 Clayton's picture

I don't mean to make this political, and I certainly don't mean to minimize what happened to those poor students and teachers, I just want to offer some perspective on how we look at things in this country and the way the media potrays situations. Since Jan 1, 2003 conservative numbers say that 61,700 innocent (presumably) civilians have died as a result of american weapons. That is 39.5 per day from then til now. That means that a tragedy like this is routine if you live in Iraq.

 Anonymous's picture

Hey Nate, I go to Tech. Thanks for writing this, and your concern and support.

If you want to write about something really crazy, watch this video. They're supposedly coming to Tech to protest. I'm pretty positive you're going to hate them about 10 seconds into the video.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4413388146858417528&q=the+most+hated+family+in+america

Love, Virginia Tech

 Nicholas's picture

Excellent piece today Nate, I couldnt agree more. And in response to "Anonymous", if that family comes to Tech, I can't believe how this would add to your grief, and I hope you are able to avoid these horrible horrible people.

 roanoke's picture

Clayton, it is beyond disrespectful to try and put a political spin on this when those victims aren't even in the ground yet. While this issue will obviously be used to further political agendas in the future, have the decency to wait more than 2 days.

Nate, thank you for writing this.

 Sarah's picture

I just read that that horrible family picketed a soldier's funeral and was sued by the family of the deceased. They now how to pay for the soldier's funeral in full.

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