Happy Kid With Tuba

This is the look you get when you know you chose the right instrument.

Mishearings

It's just that a little common sense can sometimes go a long way, you know? Like, let's say you're talking about, uh... ice cream, for example. Yeah. Ice cream. Fine. Maybe you've been on the subject of ice cream for a few minutes now, and your story ends with something like, "...and the cone was all cracked, so it was dripping."

Then the person you've been talking to says, "Ripping? How does ice cream rip? I don't understand."

And then you shoot yourself. I just don't have any patience for that sort of thing, that's all. Seems like even if you missed a word here or there, the story wasn't that hard to piece together if you just used your fucking brain, retard.

But think back twenty years ago when you were in (maybe the last time you were in) McDonald's. You simply ordered a hot chocolate to go. Cold weather will do that to you. So the young lady went over and pushed the button on the curiously noisy little machine, and sort of shouts back at me, "You a Harvard man?"

I stare blankly. She repeats one more time, "You a HARVARD man?"

Couldn't even begin to get my head around what she meant. My only thought at the time was, "What the fuck am I wearing today?" She just gave her head a disappointed shake (obviously, she was from Dartmouth) and finished up.

Arriving back at the counter with my drink, she says, "You didn't say if you wanted marshmallows or not, so I didn't put them on."

Oh. Right. They have those at Harvard.



Great. Well, it's this time of year when I'd rather be out doing things and not spending much time writing blournal posts, so entries really start to taper off. In earlier years, I thought this was the end of the blournal, but I've come to realize that it just means I have a life a hiatus. Probably not an actual hiatus, but at the very least, permission to forget that I have a blournal just a few less posts.

Promise not to miss me.

Friends

The following entry is provided for your cut-and-paste pleasure, because you know you need one, too.


Let's not be friends anymore. I'm not sure I ever really liked you in the first place. Actually, I never really liked you in the first place. We spent a lot of time together. In retrospect, this was too much time. The truth is, I've always been a little embarrassed by my association with you. I think most of us have a "friend" like this at some point in our lives.

Your jokes aren't funny. Your taste in everything is very bland and annoying. You have an exceptionally long list of character flaws. I sometimes find you downright repulsive. It has always been this way.

Things changed a while back and I thought the friendship had run its course. Can't say I spent any time thinking about it until one day that it dawned on me, "Hey, there's somebody I won't have to deal with anymore." Turned out to be only a two-year break, though. I was pretty disappointed to hear that we'd be travelling in the same circle again. It sucked every bit as much as the first time.

But that passed, too. Now it's been like a ten-year break, and I really think this one is going to stick. I feel really good about it.

So let's be done with this. If I ever see you out somewhere, let's just wave, or do that too-cool-for-words chin-flip-up thing we all learned in the halls at school.