Black Friday Not So Black After All

I wasn’t intending to set a toenail out of Casa de Agoraphobe on this blackest of all days.  However, I changed my mind because I want to win the Mega Million jackpot tonight, primarily for my friend Rose, whose workman’s comp doctor is forcing her to go back to her job on Monday, which is way too soon.  (I’m really throwing down to the FP!)  At the lucky-lotto-ticket store, I met a man named Skip who told me he’s been living in his van, and will continue to do so until Monday, when he is moving into his new apartment!  We walked outside and he gave me his card, AND a big smile.  Even though Skip’s teeth are a little chipped and somewhat yellowed, it was one of the most beautiful smiles I have seen in a long, long time.  I told Skip if I won, I would call him – and I WILL.  I also told him about E-Squared by Pam Grout, and about how we can manifest things into our lives.  Skip nodded vigorously and said, “Yes, absolutely…”  Somehow, I’m not surprised that Skip already knows.   

Ghost in 7A-Part One

How I Became The Ghost of 7A

Human emotion can have the psychic viscosity of motor oil. 

That’s why I am stuck in this apartment for all eternity, or until I enter my next incarnation, if that’s even a possibility. 

Unfortunately, there’s no one here to ask. 

I didn’t think of that.

The new tenants, the ones who moved in after my “unfortunate demise”, clearly cannot be consulted upon matters spiritual.  He’s a computer geek and she’s a sleep-deprived (or as I used to like to say “sleep-depraved”) new mother. 

I know the baby knows I’m here. 

Now I know why I was the way I was. 

My mother used to talk quite often about how, up until I was about two or two-and-a-half years’ old, I wouldn’t let anyone but her and my sister near me. 

If/when anyone else ever tried to approach me, I would scream and cry, and then when I learned how to walk, I added running to the hysterical mix. 

Now I know it was because the ghost at 123 W. Clarkson used to visit me in my crib at night.  He thought I was asleep, and most of the time I was, but I do remember clearly feeling his touch on at least two occasions and laying there, frozen with an infant’s inarticulate, as-yet-“unsocialized”, “unculturized”, fear. 

He was completely harmless, just an ordinary ghost.  Not a suicide.  Liked kids.  Not a pervert or anything.   

One time, my mom came to pick me up out of my crib one hot Philadelphia afternoon, I was about seven months’ old.  I screamed and cried and wouldn’t let her touch me.  She drew back in alarm and confusion and then finally remembered:  she had tied back her blonde, chin-length 50’s Mom-bob with a hair ribbon.  Ribbon gone:  crazy kid happy again. 

 

Ghost in 7A

Anyway, I can’t say I really like what she’s done with the place.  I can’t BELIEVE they have an 89-inch flat screen TV! 

AND TWO dogs!  One is “Millie” and if ever a dog called be referred to with complete legitimacy as a “mutt” or the oh-so-politically-correct-and-precious “mixed breed”, it’s Millie.  She defies description and now, having said that, I am going to harangue with you a lengthy, so-adorable description.  (And witty, too.) 

Millie is medium-sized, like on the large end of lap dog, but still okay to jump up on you just a little bit but not too much when you first meet her.   (Are you charmed yet?)

Oh well screw you then.  Millie is a yappy pain in the ass and so is Dave, the poodle.  These two idiots start barking like they’re being cattle-prodded at the snap of a leaf, in the winter when the windows are closed and the heater’s going full-blast. 

And then that gets the baby going, that kid is miserable enough, what with knowing I’M here and his colic! 

There’s the two beds for the dogs, their dishes and the baby’s room is overrun with stuff, including a gigantic “vintage” “Jeffrey” from Toys ‘R Us and the room, while not a bad size for a baby’s room, really doesn’t need that taking up the southwest corner, right next to the crib.  I see major climbing in this kid’s future.  Yeah, mommy, you WILL find him hanging on the drapes one fine day, well, not HANGING, hanging-off-of that is to say, and you’ll wonder why it never occurred to you that that ginormous stuffed animal would someday be the means of this particular mayhem, when HE’S home sick with the flu, YOU think you’re getting it, the baby’s unusually fretful, and the dogs are, well…

Oddly, though, I know it sounds like I’m bitching like I was always doing when I was alive, I’m not really.  I don’t FEEL any of this stuff, I am an oddly (oddly for me, I mean) objective observer, which is a good thing, because I can’t talk, obviously, which is a real handicap, and then again, sometimes it’s kind of a relief.  Too bad I didn’t figure that out before.  Less truly is more. 

Physically, the temp is a consistent, ambient 72 degrees.  My “sleep” consists of my periodic “zoning outs” as I think of them.  I don’t know how long they last, my sense is they go on for varied periods, probably anywhere from five minutes to five hours.  Just down. 

The rest of the time, I am observing the current tenants.   The mother (I’ve learned that, in my current – perhaps eternal – state, I am not permitted to know the earthly names of the human creatures with whom I interact but don’t. 

 

The Truth About Higher Ed-Administrators Speak With (Dessert) Forked Tongue

We Have A Zero Tolerance Policy…(Well, Almost Zero) Or, There Will Be No Seshual Harassin’ Round These Here Parts

But stalking, well, now that is a horse of another protocol. 

However, I digress.

Mandatory “Sexual Harassment Training” Or, Hollywood, Eat Your Heart Out

“Get thee to the University Center media room!” administration decreed.  There, before you sit down, you will sign in, thus confirming your “compliance”.  (Compliance, it’s a seemingly innocuous word, and yet with an unmistakable menacing tang, and one that began to gain increasing importance AND menace as the years rolled on.)   

Introduction; the lights go down, the film begins.  Are there awards for training-type films?  Well, never mind. 

Lights go back on and a question and answer session is conducted, but,  not exactly, because everyone is pretty ticked off at having to sit through the film which, as I recall went more or less:

Jason (to Ann): “Ann.  Would.  You.   Like.  To.  Go.  Out. With.  Me?  (It was just good minimalist acting style, I think is what they call it.)  Jason waits hopefully, and we are given to  understand, very inappropriately, for Ann’s response. 

Ann (looks surprised, then puzzled, then…wait a minute – I’m going to check Thesaurus dot com.  Okay, I’m back now.  Ann looks “pensive”) (replies to Jason):  “Well.  I.  Don’t.  Know. Jason.”  (Ann’s ivory brow is slightly puckered.) 

Ann is in quite a pickle.  She is “on the horns of a dilemma”, because you see, Jason is a co-worker and Ann does not want to, how you say, “defecate where she dines”.   But somehow, none of us gave a rats’ patootie, don’t ask me why. 

And see, this was the kind of thing that would really annoy me sometimes.  If you’re going to do a kind of retro-Lillian-Gish-Meets-Be-Mine-Fair-Maiden!!, ca. 1996, then hire a piano player!  (Daa-daa-daa-dum, daa-daa-daa-dum!  DA-dunh-dunh-dunnnhhhh!!)   It would have been the perfect counterpoint to Jason’s (albeit half-hearted) leer and Ann’s delicate sensibilities.  Hell, you have a music instructor right there on campus!  Always a day-late-and-a-dollar-short, I’ m telling you! 

So, anyway, the mandatory “person on person” training continued for another year or two, and then, it was computerized, ta-da!!  We were then able to read the sparkling repartee, which was enclosed in little yellow balloons, next to the “actors” pictures.  (I swear I could hear the “director” off to the side, yelling, “Now, Jack, remember you are the CHAIR of a department at a UNIVERSITY, so you need to try and look like a “gray eminence”, okay?”  “What?  What’s a gray eminence? Umm, well, it’s, like, say, your granddad, only a whole lot smarter.”  “Oh, NO, Jack, I didn’t mean to imply your pop-pop was stupid or anything…”)

(Indulging In A Little Nostalgia)…

When MEN were MEN and WOMEN were girls, back in the 70’s, that’s when the sexual harassing was done RIGHT.  Your male co-worker would just look straight at your breasts, and say, “I really like your sweater” and stuff like that.  If you were silly enough to murmur something resembling a complaint, you were written off as an old party-pooper.  Ahhh, sure takes me back…

Higher Ed-Administrators “We REALLY Like You, Skippy, HOWEVER…”

On the OTHER hand…

-What’s that you say?  You have a problem with paying a huge amount of money for the privilege of parking on campus?  Get over it.   Anyway, if you are a freshman dorm student, you won’t be permitted to have a car, so shut up.  If you are a commuter student, your car is probably a piece of junk, therefore, you shouldn’t be putting extra unnecessary miles on it.  Just park in front of someone’s house across the street and traipse through their private backyard, leaving a trail of trash in your wake.  Be sure to leave the gate open to make it easier for their little Snoofy to run free, as he was always meant to do. 

-You have a problem with the fact that we promised shuttle bus service with several stops across campus and then reneged on the deal?  What’s up?  You never heard of “Bait and Switch”?  Well, you have now, and we have quite a bit more of the same in store for you. 

-Remember the TV ad with the tenured female faculty member lecturing a large number of students?  Well, guess what?  It was TWO films-pieces-parts!  One film was the faculty member from one College lecturing (to a very small, unseen group of students) AND the other film showed a very large number of students being taught by a hugely popular non-tenured faculty member from another College!   We just smooshed them together!!  That’s why they pay US (and not the faculty) the big bucks!!   Yay!! 

-Congratulations!  You won a scholarship to go on to graduate studies at another school, because we don’t have a grad program in this particular major.  Prepare to settle in and wait.  And wait.  And wait.  You won’t be seeing one plug nickel of that money until we have made absolutely certain you don’t owe us anything.  Not.  One.  Red. Cent.     

Don’t think that the department secretary is going to be able to speed things up, either.  Yeessss, she did get the paperwork started on its’ arduous, circuitous journey through the system, but matters are now well beyond her control.   She is as helpless as you are now.  (And if she’s been there more than five years, she will let you know that you are preaching to the choir, as the saying goes, and will agree wholeheartedly that it sucks.  She quit making excuses for this loony bin ages ago.)   

-You thought that little bimbo you spoke to at the University Center Information Desk actually KNEW what she was talking about?  Well, Bunky, why in the world would you think THAT?  That is just about as dumb as thinking that the “front line” students in the Advising office or the Financial Aid office know what THEY are talking about!! 

You know what your problem is, you’re just too literal, that’s all, and you need to knock it off.  We put Suzy at the University Information Desk because: 1) She’s pretty and the guy in charge has the hots for her, 2) She’s been around two or three years and she “knows how things work around here” (in fact, she only knows enough to be truly dangerous), and 3) She works cheap (work study award).  Oh, and she smiles and giggles a lot, which of course ups her credibility tremendously.  She’ll say whatever she thinks sounds “logical”, which is ALWAYS a huge mistake and/or she will tell you whatever she thinks you want to hear.  We think she’s GREAT! 

-The student advisor for your major screwed up and told you the Gig Humanities Department would accept ALL of your Gig Humanities credits from that dorky, barely accredited little junior college and now you have learned she was wrong, baby, wrong?   You have to come back to us for another year?  We’re happy to have you!  As your generation is so very fond of saying, “everything happens for a reason”.   Stop whining and pull out that plastic! 

-Are you STILL kvetching about the fees?  We have to have fees.  Yes, you DO have to pay a “transportation fee”, even if you walk on your hands from your house to the campus every stinking day.  We don’t want to hear it.  Remember, it’s for the shuttle bus.  The one that’s not stopping at several places on campus like we said it was.  We added five more minutes between class times, so why-why-why are you STILL complaining?  

What?  It’s freezing cold and the wind is gusting 50 miles an hour and the walkways are neither shoveled nor sanded (including the handicap ramp)?  Where are we going with this one, kid?  (Vice-Chancellor for Suppression of Free Speech Rights closely scrutinizing fingernails while vaguely hearing “fah-kaa-ta-ta-bloopy-bloop” thinking:  “Must swing by and get a quick manicure on way to La Biaggaterriniononi’s for dinner a’deux with LaTwitta, the trophy wife.”)     

We added a fee nine years ago that will end in 2025.  The cool thing is no one will be around to remember the fee was supposed to end.  (Sometimes, we just have to hug ourselves!)

-What’s that you say?  You are upset that we didn’t shut the university down the night there was a howling blizzard, the police had declared “cold reporting”, local meteorologists were advising people to stay inside, and every other school, church and meeting in town had cancelled?  Well, to paraphrase one administrator, “they (students) should have better cars, and they should live closer to the university”.   Duh. 

The Truth About Higher Ed-Bottomfeeder

The Administration’s Point of View: You See Students, We See Warm Bodies Or No, Skippy, You Really DO Have What It Takes To Be A Physicist Or A Historian Or A Biologist Or…

-No matter what those stupid professors tell you.

-Even if your GPA is 1.2.

-Even if it has been 1.2 for three years.   We like you.  We believe in you.

-We will shine you on forever, or until you or your parents run out of money, or until the Feds say you aren’t getting another dime from them, either.  Or until you have racked up at least $97,000 in student loans, which you will never be able to pay back.  The reason you will never be able to pay it back is because a BA in Communications (at SOME schools, that is) is a “fries-with-that” degree.  Oh, no one told you?  Oops.  Sorry.  (No, now, you’re not walking away completely empty-handed, as it were, with a BA in Comm.  You have acquired some modicum of forked-tongue speech that, given just the right circumstances, could serve you nicely in the future, but enough about that).

-Plagiarism is purely subjective.   Of course, you had the exact same idea, and are every bit as smart as Voltaire.  You made like Frank Sinatra and said it your way, after all.  Smart and original, that’s you.  We get you.  Dr. Dinkle is a supercilious idiot.

-You are SO smart, you were able to boil down an entire book on the Ottoman Empire and sum it all up in eight short pages, using a scathingly brilliant economy of words.  Your instructor is not worthy.  The entire department is not worthy.

-You are absolutely right: you do not have to use proper grammar if you are writing a lab report for a science class.

-Yes, Pook, again, you are right on the money, you should never have to take a math class because you are an English major.  (Right-brain, left-brain.)  You have no interest whatsoever in a “broad-based liberal arts education”, in fact, you have no idea what “broad-based” truly means.  We are working like crazy to dumb down every curriculum we can and we are so sorry we did not do it time for you.  Please don’t be bitter.

Look at it this way:  in a few years, you can return and get the easiest M.A. or M.S. in anything at all, and actually, you won’t have to return in the physical sense, you will be able to take all of your grad courses via cell phone.  Just think, you could be texting your thesis to your professor while you are driving to Maine to hang your toes over the REAL lands’ end!  You could do it while heading to Ohio, to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame!

-So you missed nine class sessions, what’s the big deal?  Dr. Blather is such a tool!

-Your grandmother died and the midterm is tomorrow.  What an unfortunate coincidence!  This has never happened before!  Of course, you may be excused from taking it because we understand that, at the age of 19, you are now the family patriarch and must be gone for three weeks.  We hear it is very nice in Florida this time of year!  We wouldn’t dream of asking for any proof whatsoever, either.   The fact that all of your grades so far are averaging below “D” is no problem, completely irrelevant.   Your teacher is a non-tenured faculty member and we will make sure she works with you.  Trust us.  We will.

-We TOtally respect your right to come to class in your robe and pajamas.  After all, you do live in the dorms!  Not only that, but we made you buy a “food plan”, which means you have to eat the yucko-ptooey food at “The Trough” every day for nine months.

The Truth About Higher Education-A Bottomfeeder’s Perspective

Once upon a time, there was a smallish university.

The locale is irrelevant.

The name doesn’t matter.

Any resemblance to any persons real or imagined is purely coincidental.

The following rants are all figments of my fevered imagination.  It’s fiction, fiction, fiction.

COPYRIGHT 2013 Debbie Scott

A Vale of Tears Or You Would Cry, Too…

So, she comes into my office one morning and says, “Would you be willing to take the Hex Humanities Department as part of your load?”  And then she drops to her knees, walks on her knees, tears streaming down her face, over to where I’m sitting in my chair, throws her arms around me, and drops her head on my shoulder.  She’s kind of shaking and then she looks up at me.

Now, the Hex Humanities Dept. had a well-earned, campus-wide reputation for being, uh, a bunch of fun-loving scamps, shall we say, and she was at her wits’ end.  I guess she figured, “Let’s try handing them off to the old war horse and see what happens”.

I remember her assistant had told me she’s a lip-kisser – but she’s not a stupid woman.  Loose cannon, oh yeah, bay-bee, big time, but not, as I said, completely stupid.

Don’t do it, lady.

We passed on the kiss.  (I’ll always regret that.  I heard later she was a really good kisser)

It was one of the most unusual experiences of my entire working life up to that point.

Because, see, how it should have gone was: she should have had her junior assistant summon me down to her office, at her convenience, and informed me that she was adding Hex Humanities to my load.  Then, end the meeting by mumbling something about considering a promotion in the foreseeable future (yeah, yeah) and close by saying, “Did you have any questions, concerns…?”, slightly nodding towards the door as a signal the meeting was over.

Bada-bing.  Bada-boom.

Let me put this in perspective for you:

She: Dean of College.

Me: Department secretary (academe’s code for “amoeba”).

While I’ll be the first to admit that I do scare the hell out of some people, I’d like to point out that this same Dean managed to find the cajones to call a well-respected, much-beloved, elder FULL PROFESSOR on the carpet TWICE for sending out campus-wide emails questioning why we were suddenly accruing such a pantheon of vice-chancellors.

Some years later, when I was telling the above story to a young woman, she said, “And what did YOU do?”  And I said “nothing”, because there wasn’t a damned thing I could do, she had me completely pinned in AND she was the DEAN and I was, as the British say, “gobsmacked”.   Gob.  Smack.  Ed.

My young inquisitor then asked “well, did she say anything about a raise?!”   I said “No”, and she said, “Well, why not?!”

She was the first person outside of the university to whom I had told the story.

Other university staff members never asked “why not?”

When Knee-Walking-Woman left the campus to take another high-ranking position at a larger school, I was tempted to ship an anonymous box with various items, including tissues, LOTS of tissues, a bottle of eye drops, lip balm, mints, knee-pads, and a letter addressed to the hapless assistant who would be working with her.

Instead, I did like Scarlett did when Charlie went off to the war.  (I cried into my pillow every night.)