Having worked in retail for two years, I have a larger amount of sympathy for retail working conditions and, interestingly, large amounts of intolerance for crappy retail service. My thoughts are that if I can do it with a smile and a good attitude most of the time, so should you.
And, no, I don’t care that you work at Whataburger. Lady, all you’re doing is pushing some buttons at a register and putting salt in a bucket once in a while.
Do I sound calloused? It’s totally possible that she’s working a double shift, and that her kids are with her mom. It’s also probable that every lunch rush is equivalent to the Christmas season for every other brand of retail. For every exhausting day I had in book selling, she probably has nine. I mean, I didn’t cut it in the food service industry, mostly because I sucked at it.
But seriously…all I want to know is how much the sandwich is by itself.
Not the fries.
Not with the combo.
Just. The. Burger.
So, you’re telling me that it’s cheaper to order the whole meal, drink included, than it is to just order the burger and fry? Please tell me that the CEO of Whataburger is a dying man in need of an heir. With that kind of pricing logic, somebody’s looking to give away money for nothing.
Sans drink is a quarter more? Without drink is more expensive?
Those aren’t your eyes’ natural color, is it?
There’s nothing organic on this menu.
I should have just eaten lunch at the farm.
Green eyes aren’t working for you, by the way. At least not when you roll them at me.
In the news section of my Yahoo this morning, I find the following have been the top three stories viewed, in order:
1) Sri Lankan Prime Minister Assassinated
2) Bringing Romance to Automobile Design
3) Hamas Vows to Fight On After Pullout
Which of these things is not like the others? Which of these just doesn’t belong? In other words, which one of these is so far removed from reality that it’s NOT FRICKING NEWS? I’m more and more inclined to agree with N.T. Wright’s quote featured here, and say that indeed, the West has lost its heart and soul.
I see signs of life in terms of the One Campaign, in the drive towards a real energy policy, with people waking up to the desparate poverty around the globe, but when the aesthetics of the auto industry are the most pressing news item in this country, it makes me want to buy a bike and flip a big bird to the auto industry, and by proxy, our gluttonous selfish desires.
When I finally lumber across the stage with my doctorate four to five laborious years from now, I am moving to a place where the summer high wades around in the 80s, or at least to a place where humidity hasn’t been yet.
Like upper Montana.
Or Maine.
Or the Erin Islands of Ireland.
Any suggestions? I spilled coffee on my car hood today, and by noon, it had turned into a gelatious substance and baked to the car. This is my fourth Texas summer, and I’m loathing the next four.
**P.S.***
If you get beaten down by the heat, and driven indoors, check out some of the new links, particularly “Ridden Hard”, “I’m Sorry”, and “Fabulae Miribales”. They’re all either total strangers or kindred spirits.
French rolls on. Or, as they say it, le Francais continue.
We’ve moved into the translation portion of this month-long intensive class, which means that for 30-40 minutes a day, we’re given time to work on our major project, an academic article that we’re translating from French into workable English. Sound like a great way to spend a morning? Yeah, me too.
As far as the class goes, this actually is one of the more enjoyable parts of it, because it’s where we get a little more license to work with language, the slippery beast that it is. Translation is treason, after all, particularly when you’re trying to give an English speaker the full grasp of a cultural construct in a few words. But none the less, I’ll take joy in my little article about the christology of St. Clement, and count myself blessed.
Except for one detail: my French professor talks during this time. If I were going to France, that’d be one thing. I’d go back in time and tell the lady at the car rental center in Carhaix that, no, I don’t want her bloody insurance, and yes, it was Melissa’s fault that the car has a dent in the fender and you can put it on HER credit card, and not mine.
It’s not bad enough that the other section of this class gets out two hours earlier to go work on their translations wherever they want, and that we’re stuck gritting our teeth until late morning, long after the coffee has faded. The one morsel of joy in the class, snatched from the jaws of victory by incessant chatter.
I can’t blame it on him entirely. It’s a cultural thing, and by that, I mean, Western culture. As a culture, we’re are entirely too afraid of silence and possessed with the need to cram too many extraneous thoughts into one conversation or one time period. Unsure when the next time we’ll talk is, or when the opportunity will come up, we cram needless words into perfectly contented silence, and ruin both the information and the quiet. Information overwhelms us, throttles us with its necessity, and chokes out any chance to know what is prudent for the given time. There’s a great application for the manner in which evangelistic practice is conducted, but I’ll leave that for another time. Suffice it to say, if I wanted to know what Mitterand was in charge of the latest Louvre building project, I’ll find Mitterand and ask him about it.
Next time I’m in France, that is….wait a minute. I won’t be going to France because this is a reading course and not a speaking course…which means that I probably won’t need to learn how to speak…and that I won’t need the cultural…hmmm…
At long last, the process of beginning school is upon me. In less than three weeks, I’ll be back in the classroom, this time as a full-time legitimate, bona fide student. Granted, for the summer, I’ll be re-learning how to parse French and order cheese fries in a second language, but you have to start somewhere.
But before that can happen, I have to tackle Mount Registration, complete with the craggy footholds of waivers and paperwork and see-such-and-so so they-can-probe-your mouth. Whoever said that doctoral work wasn’t so much a matter of intellect as endurance was a genius. This is the harbinger of many hoops to come, I have no doubt. And these are the bad omens:
**One of my favorite movies is Office Space, the quintecessential mockery of protocol.
**I have a large collection of outlaw folk, and wish that I were that lone outsider that Springsteen sings about.
**I roll my eyes behind customer backs when I get stupid questions.
Am I the iconoclast? Are the hoops of necessity? Or is learning really the thing? Is the pursuit of wisdom and higher learning the vision it hopes to be? I believe that it is, or I wouldn’t be monkeying around here. But for all that is holy, it shouldn’t require four forms of identification to eat lunch.
This will be my cross to bear in the academic world, that I have little patience for protocol. Given my choice, I’d take classes out to the courtyard and talk in the round EVERY DAY. Things like ecclesiology make more sense in the fresh air. But that day will come, and for now, I am the pupil and not the teacher.
Until that day, I am establishing the “Junk-On-A-Stick” Club. Dues can be payable to me next time you see me. For 5$ a year, you get your own bumper sticker, the right to call crap for what it is, and the license to jump through whatever hoops you have to, but not be especially happy to do so. In other words, you get a bumper sticker and to continue to do what you’re doing already. David Wiley’s already got dibs on the Southern California chapter, but I’ll be accepting resumes for alternate branches through the end of the month.
