About thirty years ago, some genius had the bright idea to build a university in a valley, with all of the English classes located at the very bottom of the crevasse, and the parking lot at the highest height of the hill. And out of all the eligible men in all the world that I could have ended up with, I married the man who lives within driving range of THAT university. And then I changed my major to English and it’s all been downhill from there. No, literally. Downhill.
So every day I park Thor and hike seven miles to the depths of despair—the English section of the university, which is conveniently built underground, so as not to let even the slightest glimmer of hopeful daylight into any of the classrooms. The dark concrete really adds to the dungeon effect. Because we wouldn’t want the students to feel alive and optimistic—that would be a disaster.
To get to these foreboding classrooms, I am required to descend a never-ending staircase that looks something like this:
Only a little less hopeful and a lot more doom-ful. Image from here.
It’s not that fun, but I tell you what—going down is not half as bad as coming back up. It’s like vomit that way.
Anyway, today as I approached the top of the staircase, I happened to be following a petite woman in a sharp-looking business suit with clicky clacky pointy shiny shoes. She walked fast, and with lovely posture. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was a little jealous of her put-togetherness. However, before reaching the first flight of stairs that lead to our utter destruction, she veered off to push the button and wait for the elevator. At the very top of the staircase; as in, there are no levels higher than where we were, so she must have been waiting for it to take her down.
I couldn’t believe it. Here was a woman in seemingly well health, needing to get down a set of stairs, and choosing instead to take the elevator. What’s the point? I felt like whipping her around by the shoulders, giving her a good hard shake, and shouting, “You’re using the elevator NOW? But why? DOWN IS THE EASIEST PART!”
I didn’t do that. Instead, I’m writing this post. I’m passive-aggressive like that.
Later, while waiting for the professor to come in at the start of my last class, I remembered we were supposed to be grouping up in our previously-formed group. I knew I was part of Group Five, but I couldn’t recall any familiar faces of who’d been in my group the last class. For some reason, something—some uncontrollable, unfortunate force within me—compelled me to ask the kid next to me if he was in Group Five.
“No,” he said, “I’m pretty sure I was in Group Four.”
“Oh, okay,” was my reply, and if I had stopped there, it would have been fine. But no. Of course I never stop there. I don’t have it IN me to stop there, do I? I had to keep talking…
“Well, I can’t remember any of the kids in my group. Nobody looks familiar. I guess I have no friends.”
I GUESS I HAVE NO FRIENDS? What the eff does that even have to do with anything? I’m so lame. I am, and you know how I know? Because he looked at me, the “cool-kid” guy, and said, “Oh. That’s kind of sad.”
Kind of sad, indeed. See, what he doesn’t know is that I don’t GUESS I have no friends—I KNOW I have no friends, and it’s my own fault, because I don’t LIKE having friends. I usually go out of my way to wear a sneer on my face and never speak to any other students, ever. I made it sound like I was friendless and sad about it, when in reality, I’m friendless and that’s the way (uh huh, uh huh!) I LIKE IT.
University is so hard.
At least some people are enjoying their college experience; look at what the fun-loving students in Quebec are doing:
This was shot in one take, which is pretty impressive even if you aren’t easily impressed, which I am, but whatev. Those French girls are lovely, aren’t they? I’ve always thought European women are much lovelier than myself. I’m often inspired to cut my bangs real funky-like after I see a whole slew of French girls. Anyway, it was interesting to me that their university seems to be built like an underground cave, just like mine—must be a Canadian thing.
In other news, I didn’t get a scholarship this semester like last semester, so there’s that. I’ve decided I’m going to start charging you all $1.00 per post to read my blog, and if I’m prolific enough in my writing, and you all actually pay me what you owe me, it would be like I created my OWN scholarship. Take THAT, university! I don’t even need you! (Camille…that’s not a scholarship—it’s called a JOB.)
Oh. Yeah. One of those.
Well, if you feel so inclined to donate to the Scholarship Fund of Getting Camille Through the Vilest Experience In Her Life, go ahead and do so at your earliest convenience. And if your convenience is, say, RIGHT NOW, that would be really lovely.
***These are just some of the Random Thoughts I’ve thought this Tuesday, and I’m posting with the intention to join up the Random Tuesday Thoughts movement—my very first try! You can read other people’s RTTs right here.***
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