So Clown College was Out of the Question?

I walked across the stage, shook the dean’s hand, and picked up my degree. After that it was all over except for the pictures. Time to start up with real life, no more playing around. Am now a serious adult with serious career plans

The next day at 9:30 in the morning I made it to my first day of work.

“Alright, you’ll be running the Human Foosball Table. It’s pretty self explanatory. Now help me set up the rest of the carnival.”

Yes that’s right, four years, 137 credit hours, 24 thousand dollars worth of student loans, and one computer science degree later I’ve officially entered the American workforce as a carnie.

Now, it’s not as glamorous as it initially sounds. It’s not all high salaries and free cotton candy. No, there’s much to-do with the rolling and unrolling of gigantic inflatable rides, yelling strange, made-up catch phrases at small children (most noticeably “low to the ground is your friend,” and “No vicious throwing!”), as well as becoming incredibly sunburnt.

And come to think of it, I still haven’t gotten any cotton candy, free or otherwise.

(A small aside here. I’ve often complained about my facial features and how they lend me a very shifty and untrustworthy look. Long ago I realized this was because of my very deep-set eyes. Few people believed me, but now I have irrevocable proof: That incredible sunburn from above left me looking like I wore goggles all day out in the sun. Because, you see, my jutting brow provides such shade for my eyes that I have two perfect white ovals around my eyes in the center of my very bright red face. It’s a beautiful time to be Jason.)

I have, however, learned many important lessons in the past two weeks.

1. You should always ask how many people will be staffing any carnival you’ll be working. If the answer is “Just the two of us,” and the person answering is even smaller than yourself, run away as fast as possible. Especially if you weigh 140 pounds and there is an 800 pound inflatable slide waiting in a nearby truck.

2. Exactly how one should hammer a huge metal stake into the ground. (Answer: Very carefully, so as not to take a wild swing with the sledge hammer, miss said stake, thump into the ground, lose your balance, and fall head over heels onto the ground. While a group of 15 teenagers watch you. Otherwise it’s just tacky.)

3. If asked to work carnival games, be very specific in your answer. Always include the proviso “I prefer not to work any games in which children with incredibly horrible aim and sadistic natures are given air rifles and asked to shoot over stacks of cans that I will have to stand two feet away from and then restack continuously for a 4 hour stretch.” Trust me, this will save you much grief, not to mention physical pain and will allow you to avoid having to use the phrase “Oh no, my eye is fine, my vision is slowly returning,” twice in the course of any given day.

And that, my friends, is just the tip of the iceberg. To think I once longed for the freedom that adult life would bring. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go get ready for my next exciting adventure in the real world. Which reminds me of the last tip of the day: if ever asked the question “Would you mind wearing an animal costume?” be very clear in your enunciation of the words “Oh Hell no.”

Public Indecency

(In honor of my graduatin’, I’m doing a retrospective of the most memorable things that happened to me in college.)

There are some days that you’ll remember for your whole life. Often these are great times that you want to crystallize in your mind forever and stand out as the best times of your whole existence. Others are days in which you manage to publicly humiliate yourself so many times that you look back and wonder how you survived the day without combusting into a pile of embarrassed ashes.

Guess which kind of day I’ll be talking about today.

So it was midway through my first semester sophomore year and I was taking 19 hours of pure engineering, math, and science, along with marching band and work. To say that I was stretched a little thin would be the greatest of understatements. Overall, it wasn’t horrible though, I was a wiz at time management back then.

The bad thing was, I had 3 midterms scheduled for the same day. Back to back to back. And the day before I had gone through a grueling band rehearsal followed by 5 hours that night at the law library. I was in no condition to study for anything, but I soldiered through anyway, staying up way too late, fueled by massive amounts of Dr Pepper.

Sadly the buzz did not carry through and I ended up oversleeping the next morning. I woke up 10 minutes before the first test and freaked out. I clothed myself as fast as humanly possible and ran from my basement room up the stairs. On the top of the stairs, I slipped a little and ran into the wall. Catching myself on the railing, I barely paused and kept running. This turned out not to be the best course of events.

Had I stopped to examine my situation, I would have noticed that I had caught the back pocket of my jeans on the metal that fastens the railing to the wall. Yeah, that didn’t happen, so instead, as I ran up and out of the stairwell, I hear this tremendous RIIII-IIIP.

I look down and realize that I have the back of my pants near my knees and the majority of my Snoopy-boxers-covered ass is exposed.

Simultaneous with this realization, comes the additional realization that my first exam has already started 4 minutes ago. Using the keen powers available to my caffeine-addled brain, I decide that there is no time to go back and change, I must get to this test. So off I run through campus, minus the back of my trousers, to take a test that I’m 10 minutes late for.

I get to the test, take it with only a few odd looks thrown my way, and speed off to the next. I get a lot more weird looks for this one, as I must traverse the whole of the engineering building. Engineers, by choice of profession, are not used to seeing someone bereft of the majority of their pants in their vicinity. But I have thick skin and ignore the laughs, I have a test to take.

Two down, one to go. The last one is in Dallas Hall, the main building on campus. This means I’ve got to pass through the main quad, by the fountain, and up the huge staircase of Dallas Hall in my current, publicly indecent state. By this point I’m pretty much at the end of my rope.

This is indeed confirmed by my miniature nervous breakdown that occurs a few minutes later during the calculus 3 test.

I look over the test, recognize absolutely nothing on the entire thing and come to the conclusion that I have more than likely just failed three tests consecutively, all while my ass is on display for all to see. I give a little yelp of hysterical laughter and try to finish as much of the test as I can.

Finally I am done and wander out of the hall. For better or worse, I tell myself, it is done. I feel a great weight is lifted, and do a little victory dance which entails a little jump in the air at the end. Sadly, the little jump occurs right at the top of the steps outside Dallas Hall. I trip, fall, roll, and otherwise just bite it all the way down the first half of the stairs, finally catching myself on the railing where the stairs even out. This is only a minor victory, because as I am pulling myself up, I slip again and roll down the rest of the steps. This is officially the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to me, and of course it happened whilst I was still missing the backside of my pants.

And thus ended the most painful and ridiculous day of my entire life to date. Because after that, I refused to leave my room for anything. I mean, seriously, after 4 hours like that, you don’t go outside again unless you’re looking for a bolt of lightning to take you away from it all. Which, looking back on it, might not have been a bad idea, on the whole.

Artistic Sensibility

In honor of my graduatin’, I’m doing a retrospective of the most memorable things that happened to me in college. (This upcoming story is entirely true, by the way, not exaggerated in the least.)

In my sophomore year, for my art perspective (well-rounding courses that you are required to take to complete your degree), I took Intro to Studio Drawing. I figured it couldn’t be too hard, plus I took three years of art in high school – I should be fine. And it might even be fun. I mean, drawing = fun, right?

Oh, silly naïve Jason.

I hadn’t factored in the fact that I sucked at art in high school. Damn all those grades for completion rather than talent. A false sense of security is no one’s friend, in the school of the arts. Suffice it to say I was pretty bad at drawing. Not horrible (or so I thought), but bad enough that I definitely started to look on drawing class with something resembling dread.

Approximately once every two weeks or so, we would have Critique Day, wherein everyone in class would put up everything they drew from that week in a small gallery. The professor would then come around and (shockingly) critique what we had done and tell us what we should work on for the upcoming week.

I don’t know exactly what I did to the guy, but my professor hated everything I ever drew. With a fiery passion. I mean, yeah I was bad, but this guy was in a whole other league. He seemed to take my lack of talent as a personal affront to both his profession and himself. So these critiques were always a fun ride, for me.

On the night before the third critique, I had something resembling an inspiration and drew, what I thought, was a really good picture – a close up portrait of a guy in deep shadow. For once I was actually excited to put this thing up and hoped that maybe the professor might toss me something resembling a compliment.

The day dawns, I set everything up. Critique begins:

[Jason is standing beside his artwork next to Bob, another student in the class. The professor is just finishing his critique of Bob’s work]

Prof: So all in all, you’ve made a lot of progress. Keep up the good work. [turns to Jason] So what do we have here...

[Professor peers at Jason’s work. He focuses in on the portrait. Jason visibly swells with pride.]

Prof: This piece here is interesting. When did you do it?

Jason: Last night. I was sort of inspired…

Prof: Ah…

Jason [who never learns]: So what do you think of it?

Prof: Hm. Well, let me just say something here. You know, art is a tricky subject. Sometimes in life, things you do say something about yourself. Other times it doesn’t matter. Like if a person is bad at math, people just say ‘Oh well, you’re just bad at math.’ It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But you know, if you’re bad at art, it’s like saying you don’t have a soul.

[This is the sum total of the professor’s critique. He walks off. Jason stands there shell-shocked. Bob has been listening, comes over.]

Bob: Dude. Did he just say that you don’t have a soul?

Jason: ...Yeah, I think he did.

Bob: Damn man. I’d be a little worried right about now.

And that pretty much sums up the entire class experience. I ended up pulling a B+, after haggling with him up from a C. Since I never missed a single day of class and I never once tried to kill him with a piece of charcoal all semester long, I think I earned every bit of it too.

Adulthood and Injuries

Yesterday was the grand move-in / move-out day. Finally I would be out of the dorm and into my real apartment to begin what would no doubt be real and exciting life. To start said exciting, adult life, my parents came into town bearing piles of furniture and kitchen ware to get me set up. Because, let’s face it, if it was just me I would eat Ramen noodles every meal of the day and build furniture out of cardboard boxes. And I would then totally build a fort out of the cardboard boxes with a sign in the front that said “NO GIRLS ALLOWED.” But we’re getting off track here.

So, over the course of 6 hours, we moved all my crap out of the dorm and down the highway all three grueling miles to my new place. We even got The Huge-Ass TV of Death and Awesome-ness all the way over there without any injuries to ourselves or the TV. I consider that one of the few physical miracles of this age, considering the size of the TV, the size of myself, the distances traveled, and my tendency to fall down all the time.

Rather than actually set anything up, we just sort of piled everything in the middle of the room and I’d get around to setting up later on. First, we must hit the Wal-Mart to buy all those things that I take for granted that people would have in their apartment that I most certainly do not have. Like trashcans. And a broom. And lights (but we’ll get to that).

Wal-Mart continues to and will always be my true arch nemesis. Fighting through the hoards of small, screaming children and climbing over the backs of fallen, less hardy shoppers, I found an excellent box of cut rate dishes that serve 8, a set of 6 steak knives in a cool wooden block, a skillet, and a standing lamp, all for about 30 bucks. Which is why even though we may hate each other with a fiery passion, I will always come back to Wal-Mart.

Oh yeah, so I definitely needed that lamp. Why, you ask? Because did I mention that while my apartment is hella awesome, it lacks lights? Yeah, there are no lights in the living room, or either of the bedrooms. Yet, both bedrooms come with strange-looking “Emergency Buttons” that come attached to the wall at waist height and hang from short cords. Obviously someone got a little confused on priorities somewhere during the construction process.

Anyways. Now it is time for the most fun part of the day, bed shopping. For an awesome new bed is to be my graduation present, so’s I don’t have to sleep on the futon anymore, much like a hobo. However, we hit something of a problem as we realize that beds are freakin’ expensive in Dallas. To the tune of 35% mark-up from back home. So no bed for Jason, until Wednesday.

My parents head on back home, now that I’m nicely civilized. I take a breath, look around my new place and the large pile of crap I now have. Sooo exciting.

*********************

Majority of the crap is now finally in its proper place.

Alright, time to cook dinner for myself. Huzzah for Ramen noodles. And the automatic sandwich maker. Sweet.

However, issues always arise. Because as I am carrying my steaming bowl of noodles to the table, I step on the border between the tile and the carpet and get a foot full of tiny carpet tacks. “Yow,” I say. But I recognize that I have a bowl of extremely hot liquid in my hand, so I do not freak out and flail like I would normally when impaling myself on a bunch of spikes. Congratulate myself on newfound cool, calm demeanor.

Suddenly, telephone rings. Turn to answer it, pour boiling liquid from the noodles all over my hand. Go blind temporarily from the pain. Noodles go everywhere. Recover sight, place bowl into sink. High pitched shriek. Hand under the water. Ahhh, much relief.

On the plus side, I completely forget about pain in foot.

So for the rest of the night, I must keep my hand in water, or have a cup nearby to reapply when pain comes back. “S’alright,” I say. “All part of being an adult.” I clean up the noodles (none of which touched anything but tile, thank God) and recover on the couch.

Hm, still need to put the futon and the shelves together. Will be difficult with injured hand, but must persevere. Adults must go through this sort of thing all the time. Begin work on the futon. Must apply large seating area piece A to outer frame piece B. No problem. Screw #1 in place. Move to other side. Attempt to place screw #2. Hand still wet from glass full of ice, piece A slips out of my burned hand and falls onto previously unharmed hand, sandwiching it between two large, unwieldy pieces of metal. “Yow,” I say again.

Decide that perhaps adults have a bit more common sense and grace than I. Will attempt to continue this process tomorrow, when hands and one foot are throbbing less. Huzzah for adulthood.

Democracy

(Subtitle: Proof That It Doesn’t Work)

[The scene: Saturday night in the dorms. Frank, Jason and Sean have just returned to the room. Mark and Eric are at their respective computers. It is decided that everyone will watch a movie to waste the rest of the night. Everything is going great, or so it would seem.]

Jason: So what’re we gonna watch?

Frank: I don’t know, what do we got?

[Sigh. Jason reads off the name of every movie in the room.]

Frank: . . .

Jason: So? What are we gonna watch?

Sean: I don’t care, someone pick something.

Jason: How about The Italian Job? I still haven’t seen that.

Sean: Me either.

Jason: Sweet.

[Goes to put it in.]

Mark: No, I want to watch Transformers – The Movie!

Jason: Shut up, we’re not watching it.

Mark: Why?!

Jason: Because it sucks.

Mark: It has Orson Wells. It can’t suck.

Jason: Read closer. Orson Wells as Unicron. Suck.

Mark: Whatever.

Eric: Turtles in Space!!!

Jason: Excuse me?

Eric: I vote for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in Space.

Sean: Is that even real?

Mark [rummages through his desk]: Yeah it is.

Jason: Sigh. Fine. Since we all can’t decide on a choice, we’ll have a vote. In traditional Democratic and Survivor style, the movie that gets the most votes will win so get your alliances ready now. You have 2 minutes until poll time.

[Various levels of deal making occur. A seemingly strong alliance is formed between Jason and Frank for The Italian Job. Sean wishes to please everyone and is pained to commit anywhere. Eric continues his strange obsession with Turtles in Space. Mark keeps pushing Transformers: “Leonard Nimoy! When has he ever made a bad movie?”]

Jason: Two minutes up! Commence with the voting.

[He rips up an index card into strips and hands out the ballots. After a few seconds, he collects the votes in The Red Cup of Judgment.]

Jason: I will now read the votes aloud. Whichever movie gets the most votes is automatically the winner, no matter what.

Eric: You have to read them out loud exactly as they’re written.

Jason: Sigh. Whatever. Fine. Vote #1: "Turtles in Space, George Bush sucks." Okaaaay. Vote #2: "The Italian Job." Vote #3: "Transformers." Quite the dead heat, we’ve got here. Vote #4: ...goddamn it.

Sean: What?

Frank: [giggles like a teenage girl.]

Jason: Vote #4: "Jason is a fugly hoe." Sigh. Okay, so that’s one vote for Turtles, one for Italian Job, one for Transformers, and one for Jason is a Fugly Hoe. Siiiiigh. Guess it all comes down to this last vote.

[Pause to build anticipation.]

Jason: The Fifth and Final Vote is: "Italian Transformers?!"

Sean: Can’t we all just get along?

Jason: Damn it! That’s it! Democracy sucks. We’re a dictatorship now. It’s my TV, my room, we’re watching The Italian Job. I will destroy all opposition. Any questions? Good. Lets get to getting.

[Thus, the decision was made. And the movie wasn’t too bad, although almost painfully predicable and contained no shirtless Mark Walberg, which was a shame, seeing as I thought he was contractually obligated to do at least one scene without his shirt per movie.]

Anyway, what can we take from this object lesson? Democracy is futile, because your average voter either: is nostalgic for their past and votes for safe choices, is afraid of offending anyone and becomes indecisive, has the mental maturity of a 16 year old girl, or becomes jaded and cynical during the whole process and plots to overthrow the resulting government.

Damn, I should totally teach political science.