Monday, February 2, 1998
Coffee wishes and Hummer dreams
MONDAYS Observing the dawn of a new week in the lifestyles of
the unfortunate and pathetic
Everyone should own a Hummer, especially for those Mondays when
traffic doesn’t want to move and you just want to plow the cars
over. Hummers have a lot of power, but you can only buy one in an
automatic. Apparently the military wants to make sure that the
driver has a hand free so they can point an uzi out the window and
pick people off in the heat of battle.
But of course you don’t have an uzi do you? (At least I hope you
don’t.) All you have is a horn, and most people, especially you,
take advantage of that on the highways on those Mondays that are
just as annoying as the gum that’s stuck on your car seat and won’t
come off. It’s not even your gum. You don’t even know where it came
from. All you know is you’re stuck to it for the entire drive to
school.
You’re late for class so you skip the most important meal of the
day in exchange for the most important class of the moment and bolt
out the door. As you cruise to campus, you come across drivers who
think that a red light is only a suggestion. (Maybe a Hummer would
speed up your commute right about now?)
But at least you have your middle finger. So you extend your
middle finger and thrust it up through the sunroof (it’s always a
little more dramatic when you flip someone the bird through the
sunroof), but today the sunroof isn’t open. ( You didn’t open it so
you jam your finger into the ceiling.) Not only that, but today you
gave your friend a ride to class and he can’t stop laughing, while
tears well up in your eyes from the pain. So much for half a peace
sign.
So you decide to pick up some coffee just to get your edge back.
But you and I both know that is a lie. You know that you’re
addicted to the stuff and you can’t go a day without it.
So, you weave through the traffic, driving with a
hell-bent-for-caffeine smile on your face and you pull into your
parking spot here at UCLA. Today is not the day to think about how
much UCLA is charging you for parking.
You dart in to class with your best friend and sit down. The
idiot, who has been watching you since you entered the room, knows
that you have a Monday adjustment disorder (yes, it’s clinical),
and says, "At least I’m not as pathetic as you are. I don’t need
caffeine." What a freak.
Who doesn’t need caffeine?
He has problems.
First off, this guy is deeply philosophical about his yo-yo. Not
philosophical, deeply philosophical. He thinks, "Yo-yoing is like
life: What goes down must come up, unless you don’t know how to use
the yo-yo."
Go walk the dog.
Who cares what he says anyway? While he talks you enjoy the
sweet smell of coffee on your shirt because while you were driving
you spilled some on yourself. (And, no, it’s not the first time
either.)
But you always have time to let people annoy you, so you sling
an insult at him that sounds more like a cry for help from Juan
Valdez’s twisted cousin from Venus, Ark. "You’re pathetic. Not only
are you too weak to have a rum and Coke, you can’t even handle Coke
by itself. You have to water down the Coke, because you can’t take
the caffeine."
After you say this, your mind wanders a little as you relish the
taste of a Coke going down your throat, but then the two girls in
front of you turn around and say, "Keep quiet. The professor is
about to speak."
Shut up.
You’re tempted to say, "I’ll give you something to talk about."
But you don’t.
As though the professor is some anointed prophet from the Holy
Land who walks on water and could predict the winning lotto numbers
with the wave of a hand. Yet he doesn’t know what’s going to be on
the next exam.
Then class starts.
You sit back in your seat to relax, and your professor says that
he’s ready to pass out the exam, because it’s Monday after all.
And, you know, Monday has been exam day ever since the dawn of
time.
Why? Well, on the seventh day God rested, right? But He slept on
the wrong side of the bed and was a little pissed off the next
morning, so on the eighth day He created Mondays, and gave
professors the overwhelming need to schedule exams on them.
By now you’re drowning in your Mocha-land haze. The weekend was
only yesterday and you were in fifth gear, driving 95 mph on the
freeway, and now your professor wants you to throw it into reverse.
What do you do now?
You stop and wait for your vision to clear, the cartoon stars to
stop spinning and for the shaking to stop from your
caffeine-induced seizure. You look around at the rest of the people
in the classroom and see that one person must have woke this
morning to a nearly empty closet.
All that was left was a pair of orange pants and argyle socks.
No one decides to wear orange pants and argyle socks, it just
happens. What a pathetic fool. That’s a fashion statement that only
a mother could love, and she does. That’s the problem: Any mother
who doesn’t take control of her child’s dressing habits from an
early age should be boiled in a vat of gourmet-blend Brazilian
coffee brewed just for her. (Or, she should at least watch out for
Hummers on the streets, right?)
But as you look at the people around you it seems as though
everyone is having an argyle-and-orange morning, all except that
perky toss-back-your-hair blonde who talks in smiles. You know the
type, who is, like, totally having a, like, totally, like, good
day. Like, the best day of her life. Like, you know. She’s the one
with the pencil, a pen, gum, an eraser, her finger or anything
bite-size in her mouth. Oral fixation? Yes, I think so.
But who’s the one with the Monday adjustment disorder? You are.
And, who’s tanked up on caffeine? You are.
Not only has your blood turned to moist coffee grounds, but you
have a sprained middle finger, making it nearly impossible to write
on your exam.
And in your mind, you’re perfect, right? I think there’s a bit
of a problem here.
Yes, Monday is the poster child for all the bad days around the
world. But everyone has argyle-and-orange days every once in a
while, even you, so maybe you should switch to decaf, take the bus
once in a while and check in to the coffee wing at the Betty Ford
Center.
Spencer Hill