Yesterday, while waiting alone in a classroom for a seminar to start, I overheard a male student in the hall yelling at someone. I walked to the door and saw a scrawny pizza-faced kid yelling at Mary, an extremely sweet-hearted teacher of ours. “I’m going to the dean on Friday, and you’ll never work here again. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”
Each time he yelled “I hate you,” his voice rose and he swatted at his face. The guy was obviously cuckoo for cocoa puffs.
It was one of those moments where I should have leapt into action and made sure everything was OK, but as the adrenaline kicked in, I found myself stepping behind the door jam. I peeked around the corner and hoped the little freak would finish his tantrum and leave. But he didn’t. He just kept yelling while spit dangled from his mouth.
I’m terrified of crazy people. I could ride comfortably on a bus full of grouchy gang members, but if I see a slipper-footed old lady get on the bus, talking to herself and caressing a shoe, I start looking for the exit. I don’t do crazy.
As I hunkered behind the door, I had a quick vision of Elliott from Law and Order asking me where I was when the crime occurred, and why I didn’t intervene (I know, he’s special victims, but still…).
“This wasn’t in the job description,” I muttered and grabbed a pen off the table. I stepped into the hall, trying to look casual, not knowing what my plan was. Maybe I was hoping he’d see the pen and think, “Wow, I really need to reassess my objectives here.”
But just then a male professor stepped around the corner and asked if everything was alright.
“Yeah,” I said, in my manliest voice. “Everything OK?”
The kid yelled one last “I hate you,” and ran to the exit. The three of us stood and watched him try to slam the old wooden door, but he couldn’t get enough weight behind it. He opened and closed the door three times, and each time it only made a gentle fwump. From the stairwell, we heard, “I hate all of you.”
Mary just waved it off. “I’m fine,” she said and went back in her office.
“That was weird,” I said to the professor. I punched the palm of my hand. “I thought I was going to have to bust some skulls.”
He didn’t respond. He just walked off, and there I stood, my hands shaking, feeling like I needed to puke.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
CSI: Idaho
Reading through my childhood journals, I notice two recurring compulsions: I apologize any time more than a week goes by without writing, and I meticulously document what I ate for dinner.
June 1st, 1989. Sorry I haven’t written for so long. I’ve been busy. Tonight we ate pork chops with rice pilaf and dinner rolls. I ate two pork chops, but I didn’t like the dinner rolls.
I’d like to say I’ve evolved since then, but I feel compelled to apologize for not blogging these last few weeks, and to inform you I had a Cup O’ Noodles and pretzels for dinner. The pretzels were stale. I found them in my office.
My wife makes fun of the rote detail of my journal entries.
Today in typing class we learned the letters J and F.
Today we learned Y and T. I have a hard time hitting the Y.
But who else knows the exact day they learned to hit the Q without looking at the keyboard? I do. October 19th, 1991. It was a special day for me. We had meatloaf for dinner.
I like to think that someday the team from CSI could accurately reconstruct my 7th grade typing class.
“She couldn’t have gone missing that Friday,” Horatio will say, taking off his sunglasses. “They were learning the H and G that week, and the victim’s finger clearly shows stretching of the tendons. That could have only happened on a B or Y day, which didn’t occur until two weeks later.”
“But we found remnants of corn dog and tater tots in her teeth,” Delko will rebut. “And according to this journal, they were served on October 5th, but not again until November 27th.”
Horatio, framed by the setting sun and a pine tree, will let out a long, calculated sigh. “The journal doesn’t lie,” he’ll say. “It’s boring, but it doesn’t lie.”
Perhaps I’ve gotten past journaling the minutia of my life, but it’s hardly any more worthy of NBC primetime. I could tell you how I learned today that Oliver Wendell Holmes, as a Supreme Court judge, favored the uncertainty of pragmatism over the immutable platonist "Truths" (with a capital T) of his antebellum youth. But is that really CSI material?
Maybe House could pull it off. He could find the connection between Holmes, the Cup O' Noodles, and the weird itch in my belly button.
June 1st, 1989. Sorry I haven’t written for so long. I’ve been busy. Tonight we ate pork chops with rice pilaf and dinner rolls. I ate two pork chops, but I didn’t like the dinner rolls.
I’d like to say I’ve evolved since then, but I feel compelled to apologize for not blogging these last few weeks, and to inform you I had a Cup O’ Noodles and pretzels for dinner. The pretzels were stale. I found them in my office.
My wife makes fun of the rote detail of my journal entries.
Today in typing class we learned the letters J and F.
Today we learned Y and T. I have a hard time hitting the Y.
But who else knows the exact day they learned to hit the Q without looking at the keyboard? I do. October 19th, 1991. It was a special day for me. We had meatloaf for dinner.
I like to think that someday the team from CSI could accurately reconstruct my 7th grade typing class.
“She couldn’t have gone missing that Friday,” Horatio will say, taking off his sunglasses. “They were learning the H and G that week, and the victim’s finger clearly shows stretching of the tendons. That could have only happened on a B or Y day, which didn’t occur until two weeks later.”
“But we found remnants of corn dog and tater tots in her teeth,” Delko will rebut. “And according to this journal, they were served on October 5th, but not again until November 27th.”
Horatio, framed by the setting sun and a pine tree, will let out a long, calculated sigh. “The journal doesn’t lie,” he’ll say. “It’s boring, but it doesn’t lie.”
Perhaps I’ve gotten past journaling the minutia of my life, but it’s hardly any more worthy of NBC primetime. I could tell you how I learned today that Oliver Wendell Holmes, as a Supreme Court judge, favored the uncertainty of pragmatism over the immutable platonist "Truths" (with a capital T) of his antebellum youth. But is that really CSI material?
Maybe House could pull it off. He could find the connection between Holmes, the Cup O' Noodles, and the weird itch in my belly button.
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