With a scant two weeks of classes left, I’ve come to realize that school’s just about over forever. Well, for me at least.
Some of you poor suckers still have years and years of mind-numbingness left forced upon you at a going rate of $1,027 per class (and that’s just for the books).
I can’t help but feel college has largely been a rest stop on the highway of my life. And not one of those good rest stops like they have in Florida with the free orange juice, but one of the crappy ones with a single outhouse and a creepy old guy asleep on the bench.
It’ll be nice to get out of State College, which I’m convinced has conspired to kill me.
“Why would a city try and kill me?” you ask. Well, why don’t you shut up, stop asking questions and keep reading — I’m about to tell you.
State College is trying to kill me at its traffic crossings, or as I refer to them, the “Crosswalks of Doom.”
In most normal, non-dumb cities, the traffic lights have a bit of a delay between the time one direction turns red and the other turns green.
This gives the intersection a chance to clear of people who swear they weren’t running a red light really officer it was yellow when I started through.
However, in State College, there is no delay. Once one light turns red, the other goes green.
So people are still flying through the intersection even after the little white man’s told me it’s OK to walk. Yet another lie by whitey.
But despite disliking State College’s killing-me policy, I do thoroughly enjoy its getting me completely wasted policy.
How many other towns have a density of 2.7 bars per square foot? And people wonder why there’s a binge drinking problem.
Even students on the five-year program have trouble finding enough time to go to all the bars.
One thing I will miss about school is nap time. Now, while I haven’t technically had nap time since way back when, I’ve been unofficially celebrating it pretty much every day in every class.
Some teachers take issue with this, but it’s their own fault.
If you don’t want me to fall asleep, stop being so boring. They’re so boring they easily make me fall asleep despite sitting in the most uncomfortable chairs on this side of (insert clever analogy here).
Speaking of those chairs, oh how I hate them. I dedicate most of my awake time in class trying to figure why they’re so small. All I’ve come up with is that people used to be much smaller.
And unfortunately the “Small Ones” were all right-handed. Which means if you’re a normal-sized, left-handed person, attempting to sit in the desks (much less write in them) is about as much fun as watching a non-stop marathon of Suddenly Susan in Hitler’s underground bunker and he’s just popped the last cyanide pill.
I won’t miss the complete lack of parking either. Jesus could fly down for the Second Coming (or 728,327th Coming if you believe all the crazies claiming to be Jesus) driving His water-powered cloud-car (which you know God totally bought for him, only sons are always so spoiled) and he wouldn’t be allowed to park anywhere.
And if he did somehow find a spot, he’d probably be towed.
Which would totally piss Him off and he’d go all Old Testament, smiting people and turning them into pillars of salt and pepper.
So yeah, it’ll nice to be free of the parking tyranny. Though I still think Penn State needs a large centralized parking facility. Here’s my idea: Let’s tear down the HUB.
I’ve been racking my brain for at least five minutes trying to figure out what purpose it serves and I still haven’t come up with anything.
Sure, some people will have to find a new place to play board games on a Friday night because they didn’t get invited to any parties and others will need to find somewhere else to buy bad food, but I’m sure we’ll all show up to watch the day they blow up the bookstore. Try to sell me a $90 textbook now, bitch.
So, as I leave Penn State, fondly remembering the times I drank myself so stupid I can’t remember what happened and repressing the rest, I find myself torn between nostalgiating the college experience and imagining what I could’ve bought with all my tuition money.
I’m pretty sure I’d rather have the world’s largest private monkey collection than a well-rounded liberal education. Or a monkey-shaped helicopter. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a giant flying monkey helicopter! Yeah, something with monkeys. Monkeys are totally cooler than school.
Originally published in The Daily Collegian.
With a scant two weeks of classes left, I’ve come to realize that school’s just about over forever. Well, for me at least.
Some of you poor suckers still have years and years of mind-numbingness left forced upon you at a going rate of $1,027 per class (and that’s just for the books).
I can’t help but feel college has largely been a rest stop on the highway of my life. And not one of those good rest stops like they have in Florida with the free orange juice, but one of the crappy ones with a single outhouse and a creepy old guy asleep on the bench.
It’ll be nice to get out of State College, which I’m convinced has conspired to kill me.
“Why would a city try and kill me?” you ask. Well, why don’t you shut up, stop asking questions and keep reading — I’m about to tell you.
State College is trying to kill me at its traffic crossings, or as I refer to them, the “Crosswalks of Doom.”
In most normal, non-dumb cities, the traffic lights have a bit of a delay between the time one direction turns red and the other turns green.
This gives the intersection a chance to clear of people who swear they weren’t running a red light really officer it was yellow when I started through.
However, in State College, there is no delay. Once one light turns red, the other goes green.
So people are still flying through the intersection even after the little white man’s told me it’s OK to walk. Yet another lie by whitey.
But despite disliking State College’s killing-me policy, I do thoroughly enjoy its getting me completely wasted policy.
How many other towns have a density of 2.7 bars per square foot? And people wonder why there’s a binge drinking problem.
Even students on the five-year program have trouble finding enough time to go to all the bars.
One thing I will miss about school is nap time. Now, while I haven’t technically had nap time since way back when, I’ve been unofficially celebrating it pretty much every day in every class.
Some teachers take issue with this, but it’s their own fault.
If you don’t want me to fall asleep, stop being so boring. They’re so boring they easily make me fall asleep despite sitting in the most uncomfortable chairs on this side of (insert clever analogy here).
Speaking of those chairs, oh how I hate them. I dedicate most of my awake time in class trying to figure why they’re so small. All I’ve come up with is that people used to be much smaller.
And unfortunately the “Small Ones” were all right-handed. Which means if you’re a normal-sized, left-handed person, attempting to sit in the desks (much less write in them) is about as much fun as watching a non-stop marathon of Suddenly Susan in Hitler’s underground bunker and he’s just popped the last cyanide pill.
I won’t miss the complete lack of parking either. Jesus could fly down for the Second Coming (or 728,327th Coming if you believe all the crazies claiming to be Jesus) driving His water-powered cloud-car (which you know God totally bought for him, only sons are always so spoiled) and he wouldn’t be allowed to park anywhere.
And if he did somehow find a spot, he’d probably be towed.
Which would totally piss Him off and he’d go all Old Testament, smiting people and turning them into pillars of salt and pepper.
So yeah, it’ll nice to be free of the parking tyranny. Though I still think Penn State needs a large centralized parking facility. Here’s my idea: Let’s tear down the HUB.
I’ve been racking my brain for at least five minutes trying to figure out what purpose it serves and I still haven’t come up with anything.
Sure, some people will have to find a new place to play board games on a Friday night because they didn’t get invited to any parties and others will need to find somewhere else to buy bad food, but I’m sure we’ll all show up to watch the day they blow up the bookstore. Try to sell me a $90 textbook now, bitch.
So, as I leave Penn State, fondly remembering the times I drank myself so stupid I can’t remember what happened and repressing the rest, I find myself torn between nostalgiating the college experience and imagining what I could’ve bought with all my tuition money.
I’m pretty sure I’d rather have the world’s largest private monkey collection than a well-rounded liberal education. Or a monkey-shaped helicopter. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a giant flying monkey helicopter! Yeah, something with monkeys. Monkeys are totally cooler than school.
Originally published in The Daily Collegian.
# 2003 Apr 08
Every so often someone has (what they think is) a genius idea and tells me every person in the country should do some sort of conscripted service. Not necessarily the armed forces (although a fair share do advocate mandatory military service), but some sort of general service beneficial to humanity, whether it be teaching inner-city gang members how to love or going overseas and killing people who look different than us.
Speaking for myself — as opposed to when the president authorizes me to speak for the nation (which isn’t often, seeing as last time I did, it resulted in seven separate international incidents, four revolutions, three and a half hurricanes and the death of the Luxembourg ambassador’s toy poodle) — I think this is a stupid idea. And not just because it’s dumb, but also for a real reason.
If you make me do something, I don’t do it, and instead spend time thinking of ways to legally cut your arm off and use it to beat you. If you ask me to do something, I just might do it, plus it reduces your chance of an arm beating by 27 percent.
I have a much better idea. An idea that puts the spin in spin cycle and the romp in Romper Room. In the Scott World Order (est. 2017), everyone will be required to do a year of service in the retail sector.
I think this is a great idea for several reasons. The first three are pretty much based on the fact I came up with it and I’m awesome. The fourth one is because everybody buys stuff in stores. Except for commies. They don’t believe in stores because they don’t have souls.
Anyone who’s ever worked in retail (and I’m sure many of you have, even if you’ve mentally blocked the memory) knows that while most customers are extremely decent people, there’s the select few who deserve a long slow death.
Everyone has stories about the people like that — which I’m not going to go into detail about here. And by not go into “not detail about here,” I mean: These people have been making me irrationally angry for years and I’m going to make you read about it.
One of the most universal things I’ve noticed in customers is the surprise that results when I ask them for money. They’ll just stand there in a complete daze while I’m ringing their stuff up, and when I tell them their total, it’s like they’ve just been possessed by Keanu Reeves: “Whoa, you mean like you want money? Whoa.”
Another fun bunch are the people who are regularly dissatisfied with their makeup purchases. The day after their purchase they march back to the store, tell me “the color wasn’t the same as what I thought I bought” (apparently we sell magical color-change makeup) or “it didn’t look right on me.” Well, here’s a hint, uggo, the only thing that’s going to look right on you is a paper bag.
Don’t blame me, the store or the makeup for your face. All you’re accomplishing is making me want to jump over the counter, stab you in the eye with the lipstick that was fine yesterday but today it doesn’t seem to match your eye shadow, which you have entirely too much of on while screaming, “REFUND THIS, BITCH!”
If a customer becomes particularly rowdy, we’ll hit a button under the counter which will alert the crack Cantankerous Customer Rehabilitation Squad who’ll fly to the store in helicopters (preferably Black Hawks), crash through the huge glass window in the ceiling (all stores have huge glass windows in their ceilings in the future) and apprehend the troublesome berk.
They’ll be subjected to rigorous testing to determine whether they’re fit to purchase products in a retail setting. If not, they’ll be sentenced to 10 years working the after-Christmas return counter at Wal-Mart.
Of course, there’s going to be some people who are just too bitchy to deal with. Those people will be sent to Russia to live with the rest of the commies.
See how they like buying stuff when they can’t, because commies don’t have stores! All they have are long lines for food, tanks, vodka and godless churches.
“I’m sorry, I don’t like the way this makeup looks on me.” “What do you mean you don’t like your state-selected shade of makeup? You imperialist pig!”
They’ll be declared an enemy of the people and shot. It’ll be great. In a horrible sort of way. Horribly great.
Originally published in The Daily Collegian.
Every so often someone has (what they think is) a genius idea and tells me every person in the country should do some sort of conscripted service. Not necessarily the armed forces (although a fair share do advocate mandatory military service), but some sort of general service beneficial to humanity, whether it be teaching inner-city gang members how to love or going overseas and killing people who look different than us.
Speaking for myself — as opposed to when the president authorizes me to speak for the nation (which isn’t often, seeing as last time I did, it resulted in seven separate international incidents, four revolutions, three and a half hurricanes and the death of the Luxembourg ambassador’s toy poodle) — I think this is a stupid idea. And not just because it’s dumb, but also for a real reason.
If you make me do something, I don’t do it, and instead spend time thinking of ways to legally cut your arm off and use it to beat you. If you ask me to do something, I just might do it, plus it reduces your chance of an arm beating by 27 percent.
I have a much better idea. An idea that puts the spin in spin cycle and the romp in Romper Room. In the Scott World Order (est. 2017), everyone will be required to do a year of service in the retail sector.
I think this is a great idea for several reasons. The first three are pretty much based on the fact I came up with it and I’m awesome. The fourth one is because everybody buys stuff in stores. Except for commies. They don’t believe in stores because they don’t have souls.
Anyone who’s ever worked in retail (and I’m sure many of you have, even if you’ve mentally blocked the memory) knows that while most customers are extremely decent people, there’s the select few who deserve a long slow death.
Everyone has stories about the people like that — which I’m not going to go into detail about here. And by not go into “not detail about here,” I mean: These people have been making me irrationally angry for years and I’m going to make you read about it.
One of the most universal things I’ve noticed in customers is the surprise that results when I ask them for money. They’ll just stand there in a complete daze while I’m ringing their stuff up, and when I tell them their total, it’s like they’ve just been possessed by Keanu Reeves: “Whoa, you mean like you want money? Whoa.”
Another fun bunch are the people who are regularly dissatisfied with their makeup purchases. The day after their purchase they march back to the store, tell me “the color wasn’t the same as what I thought I bought” (apparently we sell magical color-change makeup) or “it didn’t look right on me.” Well, here’s a hint, uggo, the only thing that’s going to look right on you is a paper bag.
Don’t blame me, the store or the makeup for your face. All you’re accomplishing is making me want to jump over the counter, stab you in the eye with the lipstick that was fine yesterday but today it doesn’t seem to match your eye shadow, which you have entirely too much of on while screaming, “REFUND THIS, BITCH!”
If a customer becomes particularly rowdy, we’ll hit a button under the counter which will alert the crack Cantankerous Customer Rehabilitation Squad who’ll fly to the store in helicopters (preferably Black Hawks), crash through the huge glass window in the ceiling (all stores have huge glass windows in their ceilings in the future) and apprehend the troublesome berk.
They’ll be subjected to rigorous testing to determine whether they’re fit to purchase products in a retail setting. If not, they’ll be sentenced to 10 years working the after-Christmas return counter at Wal-Mart.
Of course, there’s going to be some people who are just too bitchy to deal with. Those people will be sent to Russia to live with the rest of the commies.
See how they like buying stuff when they can’t, because commies don’t have stores! All they have are long lines for food, tanks, vodka and godless churches.
“I’m sorry, I don’t like the way this makeup looks on me.” “What do you mean you don’t like your state-selected shade of makeup? You imperialist pig!”
They’ll be declared an enemy of the people and shot. It’ll be great. In a horrible sort of way. Horribly great.
Originally published in The Daily Collegian.
# 2003 Apr 04
These are all the posts on scotttroyan.com during April 2003. Recent posts are listed here.
All contents copyright 1995-2008 by Scott Troyan unless differently noted.