Since this is my last official column before the Commencement Issue, and since I'm slowly running out of topics to fill an entire page, I decided I wouldn't write a column this week. Then, the Daily said they needed some filler and threatened to publish those risqu?© photographs they found of me if I didn't pull through.* So, this week, I give you: random thoughts that probably won't link together. What can I say? I'm a team player.
Has anyone ever called you out for ignoring their phone calls and you assure them that you weren't? You just always keep your phone on silent. But then as you're explaining this your phone rings? So you try to backpedal? And you're like, "Oh man, what is that noise? Is that my pacemaker?"
It's always a little strange when you walk up to a group of people and they suddenly become silent. Then one of them says, "Oh, that's so funny, we were just talking about you." But then they change the subject and never tell you what they said. Usually I'll just wait five minutes and chime in, "All good I hope." They usually look at me for a few seconds confused until I explain, "What you said about me. I hope it was all good." Then they usually walk away and I smile, because I think I made my point.
I hate it when you e-mail your professor to get out of a test and you say that you had a horrible stomach virus this morning and that you can make up the test anytime next week, and then you find out that there was no test. The test was actually scheduled for next week. And now your professor thinks you had explosive diarrhea for nothing. I mean I would hate that.
If it happened to me. Which it clearly hasn't. Damn it.
Have you ever played phone tag with someone you don't even know? You see an unknown number called your phone, so you call them back but they don't pick up. And then they call you back later but you missed the call.
And you call them back but there's still no answer. And their answering machine just has that automated message which reads the phone number digit by digit. And then when you finally get in touch with them, it's like the culmination of some intense action movie. You think there's going to be some intense showdown where Samuel L. Jackson and Bruce Willis show up, but it turns out they just had the wrong number.
Has a friend ever owed you 10 bucks and just never paid you back? And you keep asking him about it but he tells you to "relax," because, "it's just 10 bucks dude." Then you go out to eat with your friends and he loans Kyle 10 bucks. And you're friend tries to convince you that somehow Kyle now owes you 10 dollars. I don't know man, I think that's pretty shady economics.
What's the deal with these Sacagawea coins? Every vending machine gives them out but no machine will take them. And it's always embarrassing when you pay with them at an actual store.
I think the Sacagawea is like the new penny. Everyone's just trying to get rid of them. But that's kind of dumb, because they're worth a dollar. I bet there's one guy out there who's collecting all of the Sacagaweas that people are throwing away. He's gonna be loaded. Just wait.
Sometimes when I'm on my cell phone and walking across a busy intersection I'll say things like, "Hold on, I'm about to get hit by a car." And then I don't get hit by a car and resume the conversation.
But I've been wondering lately. What if I just lost service or my battery died right after I said that? How much would that suck for whoever I was talking to? I would imagine quite a bit. I'd probably forget about it and then they'd find me three days later. They'd look all disheveled and worried. They'd say something like, "Oh my God! You're alive! I've been looking for you for days. Why didn't you answer your phone?" And I'd say, "Oh, it was on silent."
*Let the record show that no Daily Staffer actually threatened me in any way. (There are, however, really risqu?© photos of me floating around somewhere. If you're reading this, please give them back. Seriously, it's not even funny anymore.)
Neil Padover is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached at neil.padover@tufts.edu.
