The following was written for a “Drunken Edition” of the newspaper I wrote for in college.
I’ve spent more time writing this column than I have my senior
thesis, and I probably shouldn’t find that funny, let alone really funny. I can definitely say that college has taught me how to prioritize, and so can the enormous pile of dirty laundry that is growing up the wall in the corner of my room. It can also tell fortunes.
College has likewise encouraged me to pursue my own interests, like eating six or seven boxes of mac and cheese a month, an activity which has certainly helped me to grow as a person. Lately I have been increasingly tempted to say and do things for no other reason than simply because I think it would be funny. Often, this definition of ‘funny’ also means ‘creepy’ and ‘disturbing to others’. This list of things includes knocking on the door of my neighbor who I have never spoken to and who glares at me when I pass him in the hall, and when he opens the door, peering behind him and saying, “I just wanted to see your room.” I have also considered responding to noisy neighbors by opening my door and screaming down the hall, “No one will ever love you”.
(The author left to freshen up her drink at this point. She returned an hour or two later.)
My God, I hate Tollbooths that have “EZ Pass”. Someday soon EZ Pass is going to take over the world. I shudder every time I drive under that huge, horribly misspelled blinking lighted sign. That sign is the visual equivalent of having someone shove a sock in your face and ask whether it smells like it’s been worn or not, and you know they can tell it has. “EZPass”, the sign says, but what it really means is, Pitiful Driver, Someday You will Bow Before Me and Name Me as Your God. The abridged version just fits better on the sign, especially since they use that slanted lightening-y font to make the letters look like they’re zooming along. With the greatest of EZ.
An EZPass sign generally signifies that the tollbooth beneath it has nobody in it and thus doesn’t recognize money as a form of currency. I ask you, what kind of tollbooth doesn’t accept
MONEY? Can a tollbooth really be a tollbooth if you can’t pass through it by giving it cold hard money? Money is accepted nearly everywhere else in the world, making EZPass’s domain seem rather limited. Waving an EZPass in a store cashier’s face won’t buy you diddley-squat. It may even buy you a night in jail, if you’re naked.
(The column ends here, as at this point its author got up to go play charades.)
I Heard Tell 