i must not have been fully awake as i drove to school this morning. all i could make out were vague shapes, outlines of cars and trees and golden arches through the heavy snow and through my eyelashes, as my eyes refused to open completely until i was about a mile from the university, at which point i found that i was staring at the grimy rear end of a silver tank mounted on a truck. the tank's contents were made clear by the lettering on the back (assuming, of course, that the tank contained MILK and not "up yours"), and soon i was considering what a delightful piece of video footage it might make if i were to accidentally crash into the milk truck. snowflakes, grey exhaust and a surging, bubbling wave of cold white milk rushing over my windshield. it would have gone quite well with the music playing, and the mental image of smooth milk and broken glass was something shockingly exquisite until i realized that the tank was made of steel and my car is a piece of crap, and i would surely lose consciousness on impact and miss the whole thing. so i turned up the radio and passed the truck, sped up the hill and parked outside westview hall. a westview, a northview, and a southview, all bleak panoramas of drab rooftops and gravel pits. there's no eastview, because east is just a parking lot. i was carefully making my way up the icy steps when i heard something terrible. i noticed a tiny trickle of something running past my feet. i doubt it was milk. i looked up to see a scrawny, snowflake-studded boy seated at the top of the steps, hugging his knees, his narrow shoulders shaking at the pitiful noises he made as he vomited down the steps of westview at 7:58 on a monday morning. i felt last night's vodka stirring in my stomach and came dangerously close to joining him, but when my mouth opened, all that came out was "jesus." i handed in my research paper about illiteracy in america and spent about forty five minutes watching pierre's adam's apple slide up and down as he rattled off a monotone monologue about mla citation procedures, vital information i thought we had all learned in the eighth grade. i nodded from time to time. i drew beautiful ladies and tapdancing ice cream cones and milk trucks and adam's apples in my notebook. some guy inquired as to pierre's office hours, and he practically jumped out of his nine-weeks-from-retirement skin as he eagerly recited the hours. the girl next to me, peering at pierre over the heavy, black rims of her glasses, leaned over and whispered, "oh my god, look how excited he is." and i nodded, because he was obviously immensely pleased that someone was showing interest in an out of class consultation, but i felt just awful because someday i'll probably be nine weeks from retirement, wearily reciting pages of the mla handbook to snotty college students who vomit on monday mornings and wouldn't think twice about wasting milk. no matter how many times you repeat the rules, there's always one dope who neglects to alphabetize his works cited page. love kirsten Care2 make the world greener! http://www.care2.com - Get your Free e-mail account that helps save Wildlife! +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+