As a card-carrying pessimist, I often spend nights with my half-empty glass of beer, pondering the many troubling issues that surround me at school. The issues, of course, aren’t as intimately troubling as being the lucky recipient of a wedgie, a swirly, or an SEC accounting audit, yet are equally frustrating.
One major issue I confront is the level of tardiness exhibited by my fellow students. I understand that sometimes students might be late to class for a variety of reasons, including hangovers, waking up in a strange woman’s bed in a small Mexican ranching community (am I the only one?) or an “all-night study session” (yeah, right). However, those students should still make every effort to arrive to class on time, as is expected of mature adults who are so close to getting their degree and subsequently entering the labor force, welfare system or local prison population, as the case may be.
Another engrossing issue that pricks my pessimistic bone is the, pardon the pun, crappy situation going on in the university restrooms. I am, by all means, referring to the horrendous stench created by the many fellow students who so gleefully steam up the restrooms with the grunted odor of a week’s worth of 14-cent Raman noodle dinners, fermented into a nose-curling concoction from hell.
Daily are the times that, upon entering a university restroom (or, as I prefer to call them, the “devil’s saunas”), my nose gets hit with a pungent “bum’s rush” of foul “dairy-air” that causes my eyes to well-up with tears such that finding the exit and making my way down the hall to a classroom poses quite the challenge. Perhaps the university would do well to invite a nutrition expert to speak on the implications of strict Raman noodle diets, and the “end results” that come from such consumption.
There are, of course, many other disturbing issues that I could pessimistically comment upon, issues that are of vital consequence to the betterment of all students. Unfortunately, however, I am afforded only a limited amount of space in which to write and I am out of beer (which has been instrumental in the generation of my many pessimistic ideas).
Just remember: There is no excuse for arriving late to class. Waking up in Singapore, after a night of heavy drinking, to the groggy pain of a new full-back tattoo of the Lucky Charm man holding the severed head of celebrity comedian and 1-800-COLLECT spokesperson, Carrot-Top, (again, am I the only one?) doesn’t confer anyone with the special privilege of arriving late and disrupting other students’ edge-of-their-seat educational experiences. If by chance, however, your reason for arriving late to class is due to a flatulentingly-powerful, respiration-tranquilizing agent strategically delivered on warm air currents to your nose by a Raman noodle-eating member of the student body from his corner-stall bathroom lair, you may very well have a case for a claim of extenuating circumstances.