The Very Thought Of It

I've just now realized that this is the first time I've sat down in ten hours. Ow.

Early in the morning, perhaps somewhere around 4am, an elderly black gentleman came into the store. Being the middle of the month, like myself, he was almost entirely out of money. We spoke at length about this and that, and eventually he cut to the chase. He needed rolling papers, but he had nothing to pay with. We tried his card, but it was declined.

After about fifteen rather vulgar minutes of trying to find a way for him to afford them, checking the ground for loose change, trying different cards he ultimately tried to borrow money from me. This of course failed. I'm just as poor these days. We went on to talk about cigarettes, work, the weather and eventually somehow the conversation turned to my degree.

I have an Associates of Applied Science in Multimedia, which essentially means that I've sat down at a computer. That diploma is absolutely worthless, and if not for the contacts and friends I made while going to college I would deeply regret the entire two years and over thirty thousand dollars I spent there. In fact, thanks to a deplorable, awful fellow teaching the poorly named "Portfolio" class, I failed a single final and had to retake that one class. One class. That single, worthless, pitiful class was priced at $1,400, and sur-fucking-prize, I didn't learn a single thing from it the second time either.

I've not since been able to afford that, and as such still do not actually have my diploma and hold a deep seated loathing - nay, hatred - of that unnamed school that I will likely carry in my heart until the day I die.

But I digress.

The man was astounded that someone with a degree was working a job such as mine. Of course, in this economy, one has to take whatever job they can get, right? Finally, that's when things got interesting.

"You should be making use of that degree, son! What the hell are you doing here!?" He asked.

"Actually I am. I help run a little print shop downtown." I said, and gave him a quick summary of why it's done and over with at the end of the month. He started to ask about contracts, hoping to give me an idea how to come out on top in the whole situation, but I cut him off. "I don't actually do that paperwork stuff. I'm production, so I take orders and print stuff. [co-worker] does that, and she's really good at it, so I'm pretty sure she's on top of it."

"[co-worker's name], huh? She a black girl or a white girl?" He asked. This didn't surprise me at all, and in fact I saw it coming. My co-worker has one of those names white girls just don't have.

"She's white, why?"

"You fuckin' her?"

"HA. No. She and our other co-worker are like sisters to me!" I bellowed, then broke down into a fit of laughter.

"Good!" he laughed, "It's better not to do that stuff in that kind of situation isn't it! Bad for the business!"

I laughed harder.

And with that, he let himself out the door.

I continued laughing for at least another half minute, snorted loudly, (and painfully!), and continued laughing.

I probably shouldn't have laughed quite that hard. She'll probably smack me upside the head for this post.