>>> Text-Heavy
By staff writer E.E. Southerby
Volume 12 – December 1, 2002
Nothing is ever normal in my life. I keep saying things like “Once things get back to normal” or “Why can't you be normal?” but I don't actually know what these things mean. I guess everyone says things they don't really understand. It's one of those curiosities. The reason I bring this up is that I often get emails asking me to explain a joke I wrote, and I'll realize I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote it. So if you want to think I'm a sociopathic psycho who, as an infant, was dropped more often than an ovulating soccer mom, that's fine. Provided, of course, that you forward this on to all your friends and enemies. Anyway, here's what happened:
-Well, it's official. I am a math tutor. I don't know how this happened to me, especially when you consider my natural aversion to helping others. I guess it's just counterbalanced by my desire to get paid to watch others fail. Thing is, my tutoring hasn't actually helped my tutees pass any classes, and I don't think it's because I'm a bad tutor. You can lead a horse to water, you know what I mean? Or, in my case, I can lead an idiot to a graphing calculator, but I can't make her pass the world's easiest math class. I'm surprised some of these people are even toilet trained.
-Now Playing: This week it's an easy pick. “Stupid Thing” by Aimee Mann. Take it from me, though, you do NOT want to start singing these lyrics out loud while you're tutoring. Sheesh, talk about ‘easily offended'.
-The semester's almost over, and all I can say is: What the hell happened? Did I blink and miss it? I've never seen time pass this quickly. I guess having no job and waking up at 3 in the afternoon every day has a way of making time fly. You know what's weird? Back in high school the summer was great and the school year was awful, and you spent the entire school year waiting for summer vacation to come. Now everything's topsy-turvy.
-Someone asked me what I'm going to do over Christmas. I hadn't really thought about it, so I just said “Nothing”. But not that I HAVE thought about it, I'm still going to do nothing. Hey, I only get a month. There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. Thing is, I'll probably get bored a few days in. You see, doing nothing only seems like something until you're doing it. Ok, now even I don't know what I'm talking about anymore.
-Quote of the Moment: My friend Hugh, after hearing that our mutual friend Lindsey was getting a heart and lung transplant: “Why? Do you need both?” No, you idiot. She's just really greedy. See you in math class.
-We decided to do a ‘Secret Santa' around the house, so that my roommates and I wouldn't have to each buy six presents (cheap bastards). Because I'm Jewish, I can appreciate this money-saving tactic. However, I'm of the opinion that there's nothing in the world stupider than ‘Secret Santa' (with the obvious exception of the people I tutor). One of my roommates told me ‘I had better not tell anyone who I picked' in this tone that suggested that she trusted me about as far as she could throw me. What? Is this a matter of national security? I barely talk to my roommates anyway. Why the hell would I tell them who I picked? The secret dies with me.
-Ok, you twisted my arm. I picked Kirsten. Maybe you guys can help me out here: What do you get a rich girl with supermodel-good-looks, a steady boyfriend, a great job, and just about anything else she wants handed to her on a silver platter? In other words, what do you get the girl who has everything? Right now, I'm leaning towards giving her back those pictures I took of her while she was sleeping (“You said there was no film in that camera!”) Because that's how thoughtful I am. I'm keeping the negatives, though. A buck's a buck.
-Victoria is one of those cities that's still getting used to having people in it. That's why some of the signs here sound like they were written by people who had just spent the weekend in jail. Consider this one, which I saw outside the bathrooms in the local mall: “For your convenience, handicapped bathrooms are located on the second floor.” Now, I'm not a fan of the handicapped any more than the next person, but I have to ask, how is this more convenient for anyone? It would be MOST convenient if the handicapped bathrooms were right there, instead of the sign. Or at least the mall could get elevators or something.
-This next joke combines the potent combination of communicable diseases and the elderly. Brace yourselves: Our dishwasher stopped working a few days ago, so dishes have been piling up. This weekend, one of my roommates grandparents came over, saw the mounds of dishes all over the kitchen, and flipped out. So they tried to do the dishes by hand and the next morning they woke up with malaria. Alright, I made that last part up. But suppose they did? Then I'd have a good excuse for not doing them myself, that's for damn sure.
-As has been mentioned prior, the semester is almost over. So all our professors are having us do these teacher evaluations, where we rate their performance over the course of the term, and based on this, the university decides whether or not to fire them. This makes perfect sense. If you can't trust the anonymous opinions of a class full of failing seventeen year olds who are all hopped up on the marijuana, and are therefore in an irrationally vindictive mood, who can you trust?
-Ever get one of those professors that tries to guilt you inro giving them a good evaluation? They'll tell you how much they enjoyed having you in their class, and how this job is the only thing that keeps food on his family's table. Don't fall for it. I actually had one professor tell me this story: “About twenty years ago someone wrote me a really bad evaluation, it had all these nasty comments and swear words in it. It really hurt, and I told all my colleagues about it.” I asked how long it took him to get over it. He told me: “When that happens, I'll let you know.” Aww… That's exactly how I feel about YOUR CLASS!
-I've met people who are afraid that if they write bad comments on their teacher evaluations, the professors will recognize the penmanship and then give them a bad grade on the exam because of it. I even met one guy who wrote all his nasty comments with his left hand, so nobody would be able to recognize it. Oh, real mature. What you have here are a bunch of angry-sounding sentence fragments that look like they were penned by a four year old. These are the kind of people who, in my opinion, should be forced to donate organs prehumously (not the brain, obviously). Honestly, I hope the professor doesn't lose sleep over that.
-Remember when guys used to give each other the ‘high-five'. Life was so simple. Then some jackass (whom I'm probably tutoring) went and invented the ‘low-five'. Now when I meet a guy there's all these crazy hand signals… grabbing the hand, pulling away, slapping, twiddling fingers. It's like learning freaking sign language, trying to figure out what to do next. I always want to start a thumb war, and then people give me a funny look, like I'M the one who's lost his mind.
-In the same vein: I'm in my friend's car, when suddenly he punches me in the arm. Before I can say ‘what the hell?' he says, quote, “punch-buggy-white-no-punchbacks”. Later, when asked for an explanation, he says, simply: “it's a game.” I'm here to tell you that, no, it's not. Parchisi is a game. This is just someone abusing me.
-My life is starting to border on surreal. The other day somebody called my house (that wasn't what was surreal. Be patient). They asked to speak to ‘Eli Jenkins' or something. I told him he had the wrong number. He said “Do you know the right number where I can reach him?” WHAT? He called me! Do I sound like a telephone operator? Luckily for him, I have the entire Victoria telephone book memorized. Unluckily for him, I was in a bad mood, so I gave him the number for Domino's Pizza instead. Point. Counterpoint.
-I have to stop picking up the phone. It's never for me and I hate taking messages. I got a phone with the ‘speakerphone' option on it. Every time I use it people always ask something stupid like “are you in a cave?” Yes, I am in a cave. I thought this would be the best place to test out my new speakerphone. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go look up some random phone numbers (“Johnson, Jensen… ah! Jenkins!”) in case some dumbass I don't know calls me and asks.
-They say Victoria is a city full of old people. I don't think that's fair. I say Victoria is a city full of cokeheads and heroin addicts. They're all 27 but they look 72. If I look like I'm 72 in seven years I know where I'm going to go to die.
-And, finally, I've noticed that if you go to a danceclub guys have some pretty interesting ways of picking up the ladies. Basically, it's so loud that there's no point in even practicing a pickup line. Instead, the guys will get on the dance floor and sneak up behind some unsuspecting girl. They'll very tentatively start to grind the girl from behind in a manner that would get you in serious trouble in most of the Middle-East. Then, provided that the girl hasn't turned around to look at the guy and fled in terror, the guy will put his arms around the girl, spin her around and proceed to make out with her on the dance floor. Is this sort of thing normal? I'm sitting by the bar, trying to buy girls drinks… Maybe I'm doing it wrong. I keep waiting for a National Geographic special about this to come along, but so far, nothing.