2004-02-22 - 9:39 p.m.
Last spring I was putting on my coat to go do something manly (I think I needed to buy a closet augur at the hardware store), when my roommate stopped nervously pacing to ask if we could talk. Okay, sure.
My roommate was an eternal grad student. An overweight 44, he was in the ninth or so year of a doctoral program. His thesis was, at that point, still unstarted. He seemed in an eternal holding pattern, still collecting comics and old newspapers, dressing and acting like an overgrown high-school geek (advice that t-shirts should not be tucked into jeans went unheeded). I found him unbelievably depressing.
�Well, uhm, Geoff, I�m a little worried that my stuff is not being respected.�
�I used two slices of bread from your side of the refrigerator. I�m sorry.�
�No, not that. I, uhm, I had some cooking oil on the shelf and now it seems to be gone.�
�Yes. I threw it out. It was rancid, expired a few yeas ago. You didn�t want to use it. I didn�t want you to use it. No one should use it. I�ll buy you some more canola oil.� Good Lord. 44.
�Okay, well, also, you remember when your friend visited last month?"
I remembered. He had found a dessicated squirrel corpse by the comic collection. When questioned, my roommate did not share my concern about dead animals in the house (it had apparently crawled in a corner and died the year before). Rather he was troubled that someone had been near his comics.
"Well I had a toothbrush still wrapped. I think he may have opened and used it, then thrown it out.�
���
The depression he invoked turned to anger. To sheer rage. A grown man whining about a 99 cent toothbrush used last month. For a brief second I wanted to leap up and tear his throat out, to put him out of his misery. But momentarily I recalled a story.
My friend Zack once served as a coxswain at a regatta in Beijing. The American and British invitees were there for a week before the actual race, enough time for China to prove itself a virtual Purgatory. The water was heavily polluted. You row through it at risk of toxic sludge mutating you into a cretin. Despite this (or perhaps because of it), the main dish at a banquet was bottom-feeding lobster, served raw.
The society was bizarrely bureaucratic. The guests were followed everywhere by handlers who became very upset at unscheduled bathroom breaks and such. The regatta itself had umpteen officials, none of whom could relate the exact start times and passed the buck to one another.
Crew races are not run head to head (boats would drift into each other and collide). Nonetheless, Zack�s crew felt confident they had won when they finished. They had rowed well, no hitches. The other crews hadn�t looked nearly as good. If nothing else, they outweighed the Chinese crews by at least 100 pounds of muscle mass.
Zack was sent up to the officials to find out their time and placement.
�Yes. Very good. You are third place.�
What?!? Zack�s crew was going ballistic. This was impossible. They would protest. They would picket, get the embassy involved.
Zack headed off the developing international incident with this inspired observation: �Gentlemen. We fly home tomorrow. These people have to live here for the rest of their lives.�
This wisdom is applicable to so many situations. I would encourage you to consider it in your life. I was moving out in a few months. This man had to live in his mind for the rest of his life.
I picked up a new toothbrush on my way to the hardware store.
� 2004 Geoff Gladstone
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