Scrapped Plans

For the past two weeks I've been taking a good long look at the molars and gums of my gift horse (free admission to graduate school) and have concluded that there is a direct genetic link between Napoleon and my graduate admissions counselor. The withholding of a simple signature on an otherwise complete application merely because my maiden name does not match my married name (a fairly common scenario, I would guess, in people who try to avoid inbreeding) gave this woman such powerful shudders of pleasure, I almost felt bad for having to sick a dean on her. This woman, incidentally, went the hyphenation route with her own married name, despite the fact that it makes addressing her fully a nine-syllable nightmare. Perhaps it does make finding her undergraduate transcripts a bit easier, but let's see who's laughing when there's a foreign invasion, and evacuees must be called by name to the Hueys waiting on the roof.

It was 108 degrees outside today, and now that I know a whole lot more about the physiological effects of heat on the brain thanks to reading Devil's Highway, I'm going to forgive myself for wanting to karate chop Pants in the throat for criticizing my driving one time too many. See, we had this whole plan to go camping in the mountains for three days, packing all of our stuff in on the trails starting in Yosemite and then driving through the pass at the top of the Sierras to Mono Lake on the other side of the mountain range. But then Abby developed blisters on her paws from a day hike last weekend, my shoulder and neck muscles again turned to tightly packed burning rocks from the stress of dealing with She-of-the-9-syllable-name, and Pants's flight schedule ate way too far into Friday for us to get a good start on the road. So we scrapped the idea of camping and now all three of us are compensating for it in separate corners: Abby has some mysterious bowl affliction and hunches in the backyard with a look of panic on her face, Pants is napping, face down and sweating with the effort, and I've just pulled the last tray of a double batch of chocolate chip cookies from the oven. My gut aches from cookie dough and bourbon.

I should clarify here, too that not only did we scrap camping plans, we also spent the day in Fresno running errands, two of which forced us into a giant, teeming mall. If there is an experience more opposite to hiking in the mountains than walking through a Saturday afternoon mall, I don't know what it is. There's something awful about seeing in the almost the same instance a totally classy and perfect Anne Taylor outfit that's way out of your budget, and a clot of teenage girls with flat-ironed, two-toned hair, sucking down foamy Starbuck's drinks and shuffling vacantly down the main thoroughfare wearing tiny shorts with "kiss, kiss" printed directly across the ass cheeks and discussing loudly how "that one chick was a total c*nt."

Later, in the Apple store, where I'd gone to have the letter "d" restored to my laptop's keyboard, I waited in queue for my "genius" appointment (seriously, I know corporations are trying to make their employees feel like something more than paid drones-- after all, I was a "sandwich artist" at Subway-- but "genius"?) behind a chubby thirteen-year-old boy we'll call J. whose iPod was "overheating and making funny noises." Turns out, the giant dent in the back of the iPod from where J. supposedly dropped it off his dresser (and deflected a bullet on the way down??) may have had something to do with this, but the genius was feeling generous, and offered to exchange it for a new one under warranty if J. would pay the $30 Apple recycling fee. At this point, J.'s father, a bespectacled man in a Berkeley shirt, asked peevishly, "Recycling fee? Why is that my problem? Why doesn't Apple pay that?" Father of J. proceeded to make a genuine scene, despite his wife's efforts at mollification, until the offending fee was waived and J. was given a brand new iPod, sans bullet-wound, to which the warranty of the old iPod was transferred. This too offended him-- "Why can't his warranty start over?" and when the genius disappeared again to consult higher powers, the man leaned forward and urged his son to tell the genius that he was a share-holder. Finally, the injustice of the whole situation, and perhaps the poorly concealed laughter of Pants and I, got to be too much for the man and he stomped off in a huff, leaving J. to apply his hard-won lessons of white entitlement.

Other than hating my fellow citizens, things are fine. I've been to my first week of classes and have set about joyfully researching the not-so-rare occurrence of human horn growth (most would be horns these days are nipped in the bud way early at a routine dermatologist appointment, but back in the day, it wasn't unheard of to develop a large, keratinous growth at the sight of an excised sebacious cyst, or other scar. More often than not, the horns were brownish in color, and would curl inward like a ram's. Understandably, this caused considerable anguish for the patient and led to all manner of religious interpretations). I have thus decided that our long-delayed honeymoon should feature a stop at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, where one can find all kinds of evidence that Nature is fallible, and thus way more lovable.

And then again, maybe if I spent a little more time in malls and a little less time in mountains, I'd learn to appreciate garden variety human foibles all on my own...