Boston Market

I'm on my way home after completing my Black Politics in Conservative America midterm faster than anticipated. Too fast. Last fall, I took Dr. ____ 's Black Experience class and, for personal reasons, had to reschedule my final, so I was already on his radar. I was, "one of those."

You know, one of those students the professor is always talking to because they believe (in my case erroneously) in their potential. I arrived at 6:15 Post Meridian, five minutes prior to the start time of class. Dr. ____ exclaimed at my presence,"Welcome, Timmy! You're late, I thought scholars arrived to class early!" My head, swimming with thoughts of Black Power and why coalition building is an ineffective means of affecting change, was unable to form a witty, let alone coherent response. My brain, soaked with marijuana, can only retort, "I. .am. . .early."

Brilliant.

I turned my exam in early, too. I was the first to finish. Took sixty five minutes to answer 7 essay questions. I filled every page and even wrote on the back of a couple.

"If you managed to complete my exam so expeditiously it must not have been too difficult was it, Timmy?"

I detected a tad of patronization in his voice, so with my instinctual arrogance, I replied, "Maybe I have a superior grasp of the material."

He glances over my essays and after a few seconds, raises an eyebrow, looks up and winks, and says he'll see me next week.

I banked my Minute Maid apple juice bottle off the wall into the trash as I walked out, and murmured to myself, "I can't wait."

I plopped down in my car and packed up a bowl of some Cali Orange Kush, which had been curing for three months. I inhaled quickly, feeling the sharp bite of smoke flowing into my lungs, eager to feel the herb's soothing effects. I held my breath for a few seconds and exhale, the relief washing over me in an awesome wave. The stone consumes me and I put on some Metallica, James Hetfield's growling vocals alleviated the leftover anxiety I felt before taking the exam.

Cause we hunt you down without mercy!

Hunt you down all nightmare long!

Yeah!

Knowing a week of scholastic brutality was behind me, my body allowed the pangs of hunger to hit with a vengeance. But tonite, I just wasn't emotionally capable of creating a dish from scratch. I felt the onset of panic, and then I saw it.

Boston Market.

Yes. This will be the shit. I calm myself, and pull in, immediately noticing a long line in the drive-thru. That was out. I never wait in lines; it is for lesser evolved beings who aren't capable of coming up with a more sufficient alternative than waiting their turn. I park, and almost get hit by some dude with a van that's obviously doubling as his home. It had curtains and a Lazy Boy. I walk into the establishment and am immediately, but pleasantly, overwhelmed with all the delicious possibility that is Boston Market. Four cars in the drive-thru and one fat, redneck between me and marshmallow- topped sweet-potato.

Yeah, I made the right decision.

The fat redneck was in the process of ordering. After he finished placing his order, the employee asks him sweetly, "Anything else?" He proceeded to place a whole separate order, except the way he did it sounded like it was on a whim.

Employee: "Your sides?"

Fat Redneck: " Corn! Uhhhh. . . masht pertaters. . . stuffin'."

It appeared as though he were ordering someone else's food, yet randomly selecting all their sides. All the bad sides. None of those things were healthy; everything was a starch, he totally ignored the green stuff.

"Anything else?"

"How much is the Turkey Carver?!?"

"Five dollars."

"Gimme one o' those, too."

As she started making his Carver, I turn him and say, "None of those things are healthy."

"Huh?" He whirls around.

"I said, 'None of those things are healthy'. You didn't order one healthy thing; everything you got is garbage." I see creases in the fat redneck's brow as he processes my observation.

"Excuse me? I can order whatever I want!"

"Of course you can, but you're fat as fuck and you're just eating more shit. Your small intestine must hate you."

Now his face starts turning red, but before the hamster running the wheel inside his head can produce his primal response, I interrupt him:

"Did you vote for John McCain?"

"Huh? What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

"I asked if you voted for John McCain."

"Yes, as a matter of fact I did, so fucking what?"

"Well, you're obviously intelligent enough to barely have survived as long as you have, and you're ordering the least nutritious items possible on the menu because you have no regard for your long-term health, which means you only care about your immediate gratification, and being this fat at your age, five years from now you will be one of the people benefitting from an overhaul of the healthcare system because you will want someone other than yourself to pay for your gluttonous lifestyle." I have no doubt if he possessed a firearm, now is the time he would use it. I started to feel sorry for him, but I'm not sure why. My ability to empathize is constantly under attack by the Machiavelli in me. Sometimes, it's easier just to mind my own business. I turned back to the counter and asked the employee,

"Can I have a cookie?"

The fuck is wrong with people?

The following is an actual email that was sent to a friend from a dude who works out at our gym.


-----Original Message-----
From: C____
Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2009 1:41 PM
To: Darwin, Timmy
Subject:

C___, I know your not interested in me, but I am curious as to why everyone has been alienating me at the gym(Lifesyles)? I am guessing competition. I feel as though everyone has made me a freak, without even knowing me..
I don't mean to brag, and I can't believe I am telling you this, but I have slept with around 17 or 18 women. I have been in a long term relationship of 3 years in college.. The two long term relationships I lost due to work, I work alot!! I enjoy my job even though being a contractor is cut throat.
I know I don't know you, and this is strange.. What are the people saying about me, Take off the gloves and please don't hold back. I am an adult I can take it.. PLEASE let me know what seams to be MY MALFUNCTION..
PLEASE RESPOND BECAUSE I AM CURIOUS.!

D____
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T


I know what your malfunction is. You're fucking crazy. Cuckoo for Coco Puffs. A good old-fashioned psycho. Competition? At the GYM? That's fucking INSANE. What on Earth are people competing for? Natural resources? Is there a fucking untapped lake of oil under that incline bench press? Or do you just consider every workout to be a Mr. Olympia contest? If so, I'd hit the juice if I were you. You seriously believe people, who you've admittedly never spoken to, are trying to freeze you out? "I don't mean to brag but. . ." Dude, you're twenty seven. Sleeping with eighteen girls (I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt) at your age is not a high number, so I guess you really are not bragging. If started banging girls at age seventeen, and averaged two girls a year for ten years, you'd have fucked twenty girls by now, so you're a little behind pace, but kudos for your honesty. And if you disengage from the minutiae in this bullshit and look at it from afar, it almost sounds as though it were written by someone whose first language is not English. And on drugs. It's like you inadvertently let your inner-most thoughts fall out of your head andl land onto an email. And what do you want to hear? "Yes D____, you're right. You've uncovered the massive conspiracy and everyone at the gym hates you. We all secretly hangout together, talk shit about you, and wish you'd cancel your membership, because we are overwhelmed by your intimidating physique, now kill yourself" (but if you don't, a little advice: try to hit the legs more often). Or did you want C___ to pump you up, and say, "No, D____, I think you're a really, really cool guy with excellent genetics, and you're just misunderstood. Don't be upset, because I'm the one person who can see you for who you really are, which is a deep, introspective, kind, selfless, and loving soul. I want you to sire my offspring." I hate going to the gym. Not the working out part, I enjoy that, but the whole "gym experience" is what disgusts me. Everyone is pretty much like this dude: sizing people up, staring them down, comparing themselves, judging. . . there's a palpable feeling of desperation that adds 25 lbs. to everything I'm trying to lift. I can't speak for all gyms, but at this one, I feel like everyone is there for the wrong reason. It's like happy hour. Women all wear makeup and guys wear faggoty workout gear, and eye-fuck the shit out of the women. I told my C____ she can borrow my .45 semi-automatic. You never know. Remember the fucking crazy who shot up that gym in Shittsburgh? He was the same kind of guy: isolated, reaching out, yet constantly rebuffed. He blogged incessantly about his social ostracizing until he couldn't take anymore. Then he took matters into his own hands and opened fire on a Body Pump class. At least he saved taxpayers the inconvenience of a trial and blew his brains out. It's scary to think that we are surrounded by so many defective human beings. In this day and age, anything can happen. We must be aware of the signs. Constructing a message like this is utterly inconceivable to me, and you. This can hopefully only arise from the bowels of a deviant mind, because God help us if this is what the average man is thinking. . .