October 03, 2005
from the vault
I don't know why I thought of this all of a sudden.
There was a girl named Kaitlin in my 10th grade English class who was obsessively fond of country music and horses. Cowgirl boots, long straw-blond hair, Lisa Frank folders, everything you would expect. I think she ended up going to Tennessee for college, and voluntarily at that.
Anyway, we were once assigned a "beliefs" project in which we were each to choose three controversial issues and argue one side or another in brief persuasive essays. (Two of mine argued for the legalization of euthanasia and against the existence of God, swiftly endearing me to my Mormon teacher.)
After the teacher explained the assignment to the class, Kaitlin raised her hand. Mrs. H. called on her.
"Um, can I write mine against drunk driving?" There were some titters.
"Kaitlin," expained the teacher, "it needs to be a controversial issue. No one is going to argue in favor of drunk driving."
"But I'm really against drunk driving," Kaitlin persisted. "Can I argue that drunk driving is not just bad but really really bad?"
I was sitting at her table, and felt kind of embarrassed on her behalf. The tittering was spreading.
Mrs. H. was losing her patience. "No," she said. "No, you can't. I don't think you understand the purpose of the assignment. You are supposed to use persuasive writing to persuade the reader to change her mind about a controversial issue. Tell me--whose mind would you be changing?"
Kaitlin was getting hysterical. "People drink and drive all the time!" she insisted.
"Yes, people do it," the teacher said, increasingly annoyed, "but they probably wouldn't argue that drunk driving is a good thing."
"But my belief is stronger than other people's beliefs!"
And then, carried away by an angry, impatient mob, she was killed. Alas.
The End.
Posted by onion slayer at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)
September 19, 2005
do you like mittens?
Joanna wrote of my unlikely run-in with Professor Wolfe that occured while I was working at the Media department in the basement of Green Library. I spent over two years serving as a vassal in that minor purgatory, and I have seen and experienced many perturbing things other than the tale related by Joanna.
There was a particular period of time near the beginning of my Junior year during which all the University's forces of Disquiet seemed to be assaulting me at once. There was the shadowy character who derived some enjoyment from speaking to me in affected foreign accents and thereby pretending to be different people in turn; there was the persistent Argentine law student and the clueless Ph.D. candidate in E.E., and there was the day that two separate people asked to watch Home Alone within one minute of each other.
But certainly the most memorable of these incidents was the one involving the Nightmare on Elm Street boxed set, a freshman studying philosophy, and a pair of mittens.
Every night I worked for a couple of weeks, a gang of three geeky-looking boys had been coming into the Media department asking for successive installments in the Nightmare on Elm Street series. One was tall and pale, dressed all in black, with white-blond hair and blond eyelashes. The other two were smaller and dark-haired; one wore thick-rimmed, black-framed glasses. Since I found it notable that anyone would care to watch all six of these movies, I began to recognize the boys and chuckled to myself every time they left with yet another Freddy Kreuger movie.
One night, as I handed Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare over the counter to the boys, I was met with a fit of hysterical giggling that I couldn't explain, but I had the distinct feeling that it wasn't unrelated to me. I narrowed my eyes at the boys as I asked for an ID card, but their giggling didn't desist. They left with the movie and I continued about my business (probably: working a crossword puzzle from the Stanford Daily), but at some point I looked up and noticed that one of the rapscallions, the taller blond one, was skulking about suspiciously and with no apparent purpose.
"Do you need anything?" I asked rudely in that brusque tone I had cultivated exclusively for library clientele.
The urchin moved up to the counter. "I have a question," he asked.
"Yes?"
"Do you like mittens?"
This was not a question I had expected. I blinked.
"What?"
"Do you, like, mittens?" His tone was matter-of-fact, as though he were repeating a routine query that I was so deaf as to mishear.
"I...I don't think I have any particularly strong feelings about mittens, one way or the other," I finally said, extremely wary.
The strange boy nodded. "Okay," he said, and, evidently satisfied, walked out and away.
---
He returned, though, over the following weeks: sometimes alone, sometimes snickering with his conspirators. "So, have you thought about it: do you like mittens?" he persisted. I began to expect his visit. Often he would come in without companions and without intention to check out DVDs at all.
One night I took note of the name on his ID card and searched for him in the University directory. Therein I made the discovery that he was a freshman, a philosophy major, and a resident of a dorm in which my friend Katie was an R.A. The next time I saw Katie I told her about her resident's strange behavior and asked if she could provide an explanation.
"He's a little weird," she said. "Maybe he likes you."
She informed Mittens Boy of our little discussion. Mittens Boy, in turn, told me that she had told him. I told Katie that Mittens Boy had told me that she had told him. So it goes.
---
A lull in the Mittens Affair. And breaking the lull: a party at Terra, the co-op in which I lived for three of the four years of my undergraduate career.
It was a good party, I think, or at least a decent one. I danced beyond 4am--but the party itself is irrelevant to the story at hand. What is not irrelevant is what followed the party--I returned to my room only to find, resting atop my pillow, a pair of blue woolen mittens.
I was actually afraid. To this point I had presumed Mittens Boy to be essentially harmless: a little quirky, perhaps a little creepy, but not worrisomely so. Breaking into my room, though? I felt a bit discomposed. Running to find Katie, I brought her so she could behold the unwanted gift. "Did you tell Mittens Boy where to find me?" I asked.
She thought the whole thing was very funny. (I admit that, abstractly, it was.) She claimed no part in the prank. "You keeping the mittens?" she wanted to know. "They're nice mittens."
I told her she could have them.
---
Some time later, yet another night in the basement of Green library, Mittens Boy stood in line behind the counter. When he came to the front he wore a roguish smirk.
"What."
"I heard some creep broke into your room and left a pair of mittens on your bed," he said.
"It's true," I responded. "What kind of a creep would do something like that? Someone really fucking creepy, that's for sure."
He laughed.
"You are very creepy," I insisted redundantly.
He laughed again, and left.
I went to Florence soon thereafter, and didn't see much of Mittens Boy after that.
Posted by onion slayer at 04:09 PM | Comments (2)