Thoroughly Underwhelmed Spectator at the Self-absorption Olympics

I guess I'm going to complain now. I would ask for your forgiveness in advance, but that sounds vaguely Catholic in tone and also kind of sissified. So, I will do the opposite and say that I hope you either don't read past this (right here!)-->WORD, or that you are completely infuriated with me by the time you get to the end of this post.

Yeah, fuck you.

I will start off by stating that it rained Thursday morning. Normally an innocuous kind of declaration, but this past Thursday's (August 9th) bout of precipitation coincided quite uncannily with my car windows being mostly open.

That said, logical cause-and-effect relationships being the standard operating procedure currently popular in our dreadfully Euclidean universe, the upholstery of my car was saturated very, very predictably with water.

Said water refused to stay confined MERELY to the upholstery, and a bit like the state of Israel, invaded and forcefully settled the regions of my dress pants and shirt.

This particular morning, in yet a third uncanny coincidence, I was also required to fulfill an obligation for which I had volunteered, namely manning the department table at a student orientation "Resource Fair". This was a task which I expected to complete with little relish.

It involves running around accosting students, thrusting unwanted promotional bookmarks at them, and delivering a withering harangue about coming to the Academic Success Center before you fail at life and die miserable and alone.

As I walked to the Wayne State University Welcome Center, soaking pants and shirt sticking to me uncomfortably, my thoughts centered mainly on the prospect of spending the next couple of hours at this despicable task.

Of course, the proceedings began late. The group of students was sort of smaller than I had envisioned. I managed to impose myself on about three or four of them when, bewilderingly, everyone was hacked up into small groups by the 'orientation squad leaders' and whisked away. I stood looking around askance.

After about ten minutes of inert semi-idiocy--during which I stood in front of my department table, drank water, stood around some more, watched the thirty people manning the Apple table pack up their stuff and congratulate themselves on working for Apple, read the promotional bookmark front to back twice, ate a doughnut from the refreshment table, and stood around yet further--I finally resolved to ask someone.

Ah, yes the kinda pretty, kinda weird-looking (but I could still probably do her) girl from the Financial Aid office was still around. I asked her. "Do they need us anymore?" And she said "No. We're done. This is a big waste of time," in a very perfunctory tone which told me "go away, pencil dick."

I did, pencil dick duly tucked between my legs, also a bit incensed that I negotiated all this bullshit to be occupied with this OH SO BIG AND IMPORTANT JOB for all of two and a half minutes.