Thursday, November 6, 2008

Maybe I need to let the PMOT come and play next time....

After high school, I went to college for a while. Actually, let's amend that.....I went to the college to meet friends to go hang out with and smoke pot, have a few drinks with and goof off with until it was time to go home. I had a 0.75 GPA my first year of community college because I only went on test days and such. My study habits sucked and they didn't get much better when I went to CSUN and tried to work a 40 hour work week and take a full load of classes. Let's just say that I never made the Dean's list. I kept taking and dropping classes and barely getting by. By the time I was 24, I had reached Junior status but was on Academic Probation. There was an incident that kept me from going to school for a year that I may get into at some point, but not right now. However, that was finally the time I got my head on straight and was working and taking one or classes at a time and getting decent grades (A's and B's) I found that actually attending the classes made a huge difference.

When I was 26, I went into the Mortgage industry, working for Ameriquest (again, another story I'll have to tell). Because the hours were so long and because I was making a good salary, I didn't go back to finish the 10 classes I had left. For the last 12 years, I worked for various mortgage companies, made some cash, pissed it away and now with the mortgage crisis, I'm without a job, I spent all of the money I made and seem to have no prospects.

My fiancee has a bachelors and two Masters Degrees. She is wicked smart and she has been pushing me to go back to school and finish since basically our second date. This semester, I went back to Santa Monica College and I am taking a history and a math class. When I'm done with those, I'm 8 classes from a degree in Speech Communication at CSUN. That and 75 cents will get me a USA Today, I know, but it's better to get it done. This is an experience for me. I'm one of the older people in the class (there are a couple senior citizens then me at 38). I don't remember being this annoying (although I am quite sure I was) but some of the people in my class are starting to wear on my patience. Is it the three Freshman girls who decided it's more fun to giggle and yammer the whole time than take notes? Or the six young Asian gentlemen who get up 5 times a class and leave, never together, never for more than a minute, then come back and sit down? Nah, I don't care about that, I just moved to the back corner where I can take my notes in peace. But today, I met a new classmate and he just might have to meet the PMOT.

Anyway, I'm in class tonight. I'm taking down all of my notes on how to solve a quadratic equation by using four different methods (trust me, It's as exciting as it sounds) and I look over to about 2 on my clock and a little dweeb with chin pubes is spitting tobacco into a clear Arrowhead bottle. I hate spitting....it grosses me out. And for an hour (before we went on break) I couldn't be drawn away from this little bastard spitting. When something grosses me out, I am not tolerant, not quiet. I was pissed. We're not even supposed to have drinks in the class, let alone hand carried spitoons. And if you are going to do that, for fuck's sake get a cup that isn't clear so I don't have to see it edge down to the bottom. I was a basket case until about 10 minutes before the break when he put the dip in the bottle, capped it and put it all in his backpack.

I decided not to say anything because he had stopped and I thought that would be it. The break was over and we're taking notes and with about 20 minutes to go in class, he pulls out a Gabby Hayes size golfball o'chaw and starts spitting again. I start to shake inside. I am repulsed yet I cannot look away. I break out our patented family sigh....keep mumbling "that's so fucking gross" under my breath and am holding a pencil in my left hand like Heath Ledger. The class ends, and this kid rockets out of his seat before I can say anything and is gone in a heartbeat. I am not able to bitch him out in the manner I felt I so richly deserved. So I will hold it in until Tuesday....but if that little peckerhead tries to do it again, I will make him swallow the chaw and pour the bottle in his backpack. I will go off meds for a couple days in advance to make sure I am crazy enough to do it and I will keep you posted.

1 comment:

tashikitten said...

I once got busy with a friend who chewed tobacco. We were making out and I kept finding these little flecks in my mouth and thinking, "What the fuck, did he eat a big salad before we got together?" etc. I finally figured it out. Now, if only that had stopped me from actually sleeping with him that one time. Blech!!!!!