For some, it was a three-day weekend, but I was not so lucky.
Although officers of government need not perform their duties, although students need not attend classes, although banks need not count beans, although most would find a day to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. by staying home from whatever it is they do, TPTB would not see it that way for the poor slobs who make sandwiches for “a living.”
I understand. I work in the “food service industry” and, holiday or not, people have to eat. So, while I didn’t have to go to classes — the reason I’m here — I do, well, did, have to go to work and make sandwiches for other people who had neither to work nor to attend class.
I raised this issue with my boss, who told me it was out of his hands and his boss’ boss’ hands. In other words, my rampant griping would go nowhere where it could do any good.
The thought of unionizing our cause came to mind, but I’m unsure if I want to be known as the leader of Minimum Wage Butchers, Bakers and Grilled-Sandwich Makers Local No. 4.
Students have to eat, they say, and I say certainly, since it is obvious not many meals are being missed on this campus.
It wasn’t all bad, though. Friday, a day I’d prayed for all week, finally came. A big weekend for basketball, for football, for carousing and merriment in general.
Friday night, I found myself at home — alone, no less — doing homework and being a word geek in general. By midnight or so, I managed to make my way out and about and would not return home until almost 4. A caravan and a muse took me off to north Stillwater, an area I inhabit about as much as the Perkins Social Club.
Waking up before noon on Saturday, I was compelled to watch “The Lost Boys,” yet I somehow managed to miss the new episode of “So Little Time,” but did manage to watch the basketball team arrive in Lubbock, Texas, and leave a couple hours later with its tail between its legs.
The “wait until basketball season” mentality, which grew so strong with a wild start, has now begun to fizzle only slightly as the beloved Pokes dropped trow for the second time in a row.
Worst of all, the guys had to go to Lubbock to do it, easily the worst place in West Texas, an area known for bad places (let’s face it: the only thing good about West Texas is a Marty Robbins song).
I can’t say I’d be playing inspired round-ball if confronted with the notorious Red Raider Inbreds, all of them stroking their banjos and throwing their tortillas, spitting tobacco on the dirt floors of their classrooms.
But such is life. Saturday night was spent waxing philosophical over a game of “Battle of the Sexes” at Hillary and Stacey’s house, where it was finally proven that men are forced to listen to the issues of women far more than the other way around.
The game, where women test men’s knowledge of women’s issues and vice versa, was handled heavily by the boys, because I sure as hell knew what a loofa was but the fairer sex couldn’t begin to name the two leagues in Major League Baseball.
The collective sexualities of the boys was questioned, but to no avail.
So it is written, so shall it be. Women surely complain of their men not listening to them, but on one sacred night, we conclusively proved the reverse to be true and the stated to be false. Such is life in the looking glass of Poketown. Ciao.
C. Brooks Kurtz is an education graduate student from Ardmore.
He can be reached at elcapt@brightok.net.
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