Right Man’s Burden
It was Friday afternoon and I had just finished my tour of duty with the maintenance department. I was looking forward to a weekend without obligations of any sort.
I waltzed into the dorm lobby and through a small crowd of students discussing God and His infinite attributes. I listened for a bit until I realized the conversation was taking on an infinite nature as well.
“Look, you moron, the Sea of Galilee wasn’t frozen when Jesus walked on it.”
On and on they went. I rolled my eyes as six people tried to jam in their opinions at the same time.
“Jesus may have drank wine but he wouldn’t have paid 150 dollars for it!”
Here was a group of guys with no dates on a Friday night sitting around trying to convince each other and sway attitudes. Like the ocean’s endless waves they overlapped each other and like the tides their views could not be altered. To the amazement of physicists everywhere, they had developed the next best thing to perpetual motion… perpetual conversation.
“Predestinational Trans-Herminutics is …” The rest of that sentence wasn’t going to make sense so I left the lobby and closed my door.
Twice during my long night of computer games I heard them arguing from my dorm room. I even considered joining the fray.
“After all,” I thought. “Once they hear what I have to say the debate will be over.”
Instead, I completed another level and went to bed.
When I woke up the next morning, the first thing I heard over my fish tank were the short sounds of bitter conversation. I threw on some clothes and started marching to the lobby. It was time to end this.
I erupted from the doorway shouting, “I have an STD! That’s right and you do too! STDs for everyone!”
Six sets of bleary eyes widened and six tongues stilled for the first time in almost fourteen hours.
“Has anyone here changed their minds about anything?! Has one person during the last umpteen hours said to themselves, ‘You know what? I was way off! You were right and I was wrong.’ Anyone?”
It was another moment of thirst-quenching silence.
“STD stands for Stubborn Theology Doctrine. I know I’m right, you’re crazy enough to think that you’re right. This condition is closely related to Stubborn Political Doctrine.
How many of you are Democrats?”
A couple raised their hands.
“Care to hear why you should be Republicans?”
They shook their heads.
“Well then, if you will excuse me, I’m going to skip my shower and head straight to my computer game. You losers should quit wasting you time.”
Here’s a little bonus information. It’s the first equation all college kids should learn…
Surplus Time * Profound Deviance + Invulnerability
Borrowed Money²
EQUALS 65 Hangovers and 3 Maxed Out Credit Cards
June 9th, 2008 at 7:46 am
I was once trapped in a conversation like this during college, but the person was in my apartment and refused to leave despite all of the conversation kill attempts I could think of, like “that’s interesting”, “hmm”, “fascinating”, etc. He finally left around 5 a.m. That was an unpleasant night.
June 9th, 2008 at 11:24 am
The people that like to fight over spiritual topics drive me bannana sandwich.
June 10th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Wow…memories. Those conversations used to blow my mind! Especially when a prof was involved. Nothing like the arrogance of a twenty yr old!!!
July 21st, 2008 at 10:17 am
hmm