Blog #10: I Hope There's Pasta Salad in Hell

2009

 They'd changed the religious billboard by the 24 road overpass again. Before, it had toted an overtly Baptist view on abortion, but now it read “Heaven or Hell: You decide.” with the familiar 1-800 number underneath. Bart and I drove by this billboard every time I took him home after debate practice, and this time he felt particularly goaded. With my cell phone, he dialed the number and waited, me giggling in the driver's seat as I turned onto the overpass.

“Hi.” He starts confidently when the other end picks up. His hair is the same as when we'd first met - medium-length and swept to the side like a prototypical skater kid- and he casually tosses it out of his bright blue eyes. “I'd like to make a decision.” The man on the other end is confused. “Yeah,” Bart continues, smirking as only a 16 year old boy knows how. “Your billboard on 24 road says I need to decide heaven or hell, and I think I want to choose hell.” The man is taken even more off guard. I hypothesize that he doesn't get calls very often, especially of this variety. From Bart's response, I assume the man asks him why he chose hell.

“Well,” Bart reasons, sitting back. “I like really hot weather...” The man at the call center informs him that he is not just hot, but forced to carry our punishments. “Yeah, but aren't most of the trials and stuff exercise related? Like pushing boulders up mountains again and again? I like exercising too, and hot weather, so I don't really see the problem...”

I have no idea how that conversation ended, but I'm sure it was hilarious.

Taylor “Bart” Bartholomew is my best friend, and I hate him sometimes. His favorite food is pasta salad, he has two younger sisters, one that he hates and one that he tolerates, his parents are divorced, and he sometimes talks in third person. He's also a member of the United States Marine Corps, stationed in Afghanistan until June, having first arrived in early January 2012.

His first impression of the middle east was “dusty and cold,” something I knew he was disappointed by, loving the heat and all. Lucky enough for him, things warmed up, and by March it was reaching above 90 degrees every day. The heat isn't so bad, he says, it's the searing hot dust that blows around that really makes his temporary home hard to deal with sometimes.

Blog #9: Eavesdrop-drop-dropping

Dressed in an unassuming deep purple coat, the woman waits at the Maggie's Buns entree display for a good two minutes before speaking up, waving down the hipster twenty-something behind the counter. "What is that entree at the end?" She gestures, in case the verbal description wasn't enough.

He leans over to check, furrowing his brow slightly under the mop of dark hair. "That is..." he leans further before answering "...our veggie pesto wrap."

The woman nods and frowns, considering this. Clearly, it was not the answer she was hoping for, after staring down the food so carefully before. "Is there any protein in that?" I bite my lip, watching the exchange, my stomach quietly moaning.

Now he frowns, his small white ear gauges coming into view as he turns to the display of food again. "I don't- it's mostly just vegetables and pesto." A sheepish shrug, and he turns to face the woman again.

Another wrong answer, it seems. The woman crosses her arms. "Could you fry me up an egg with it?" It sounds condescending, and I feel bad for the hipster. I want to order something simple and on the menu to make up for her.

The hipster is thrown, both by the question and the tone, and he nervously straightens his light blue, "White Castle Employee of the Month 1971" tee-shirt as he formulates an acceptable response. "I'm not sure..." Feet still planted in front of the register, he twists his tall body to peek into the kitchen area behind him. "It depends on how far they are on cleaning..." Stepping away from the counter now, he takes a few paces towards the back, passing briefly through the teal door frame to check on the cleanup progress, desperately trying to help his costumer.

His coworker, a pretty young woman with a thick black ponytail who knows both my name and my order from my many visits, appears. "What's up?" By now, I realize that it's going to be a while before I get to order my usual, so I pull my phone from my jacket pocket and check Twitter while the hipster male employee explains situation to the girl.

I look back up just as she gives the woman an apologetic shrug. "Oh, yeah, we usually stop doing hot sandwiches about two, sorry." The problem is that once the hot sandwiches stop being made, the grill is unnecessary and gets cleaned and prepared for the next day. Thus, no fried egg to accompany the protein-less wrap.

The woman purses her lips, then quickly smiles to show she isn't too upset. "That's alright. What's the one next to it, then?" Again, she gestures.

The hipster walks around the counter to see. "That is our vegan Thai peanut stir fry." Knowing that the peanut sauce is the only protein element in the dish, he doesn't look confident.

The woman nods, hands going into her deep purple coat pockets. "You know, I think I'll take that one."

He looks relieved. "Great! For here or to go?"

She pulls a large, black clutch-style wallet from within her purse with a smile, seemingly just as relieved that the confusion was over. "For here is good." She hands him a credit card.

"Hi, Bri!" The female employee, a smile on her face, peeks from around her male counterpart, who is gratefully ringing up the woman's final order. I smile, say hello back, and order the usual. Quick, simple, and on the menu.

Blog #8: Meet Bryan

The ten minutes before my poetry class starts is the best part of my Monday. The entire class is united against the professor that must not be named, and so we spend the couple minutes before he arrives complaining, making grandiose claims about standing up to him, but mostly just reveling in our united cause. Funny thing is that I don't know any of these people outside of this class one bit, and some I even have trouble remembering names for. It's strange to me that sometimes the people that are really strangers to me are the ones I see every day.

The only boy in the class sits next to me, on the left side of the small classroom. His name is Bryan and all that I know about him, past the unruly ginger mop on his head, is that he comes after me on the attendance sheet.

"Hey, uh, Bryan?" I inquire, fumbling with my iPhone in my pocket. "Do you mind if I interview you for my creative nonfiction class? It's just... I have to interview a stranger and I don't know you so you're basically a stranger..." Great, I'm rambling, I think, but he's already nodding, open to the intrusion. Relieved, I pull the phone all the way out, switching to the camera act.

"I have to take a picture... so... yeah. I'm gonna take an awkward picture of you now." He laughs a little at my awkwardness and I pull out a pen. "So... what's your name?" I raise an eyebrow at myself and he smirks back in understanding. The girl on the other side of me is calculating the possible date for the late midterm- we're almost three weeks behind on the syllabus.

"Bryan with a y, Davis. Bryan Davis." It was good that he pointed out the y. I'd been mentally spelling his name "Brian" because I liked the idea that Brian and Brianna were sitting next to each other. Ah, c'est la vie.

"And what's your major?" I realized at this moment how completely unprepared I was for this interview.

"English lit." He rests his hands on his decomposition book (the environmental equivalent of the composition book, I assume) patiently.

"Cool, cool..." I mutter, writing it down. The girls next to me look over at us, curious. "What do you want to do with that?"

He smiles, almost sheepishly. "I want to teach high school."

I stop writing and raise my eyebrow at him and chuckle, remembering my own reasons for not ever wanting to be a teacher, especially in high school. "Brave. So do you have to go to, like, teacher's school after this?" I pause to mull over my phrasing. "Teacher's school? Did that just come out?"

He laughs again, and nods. "Yeah, a couple years of teacher's school."

I make a forgettable comment to the girl next to me about their midterm reschedule conjecture and then another thought occurs to me. "Why high school?" I ask Bryan, still patiently giving me his full attention.

He shrugs with a thoughtful look. "Just from my own personal experience, I had a lot of great teachers back then and I want to do that too." We make eye contact for a moment, not because we're seeing something in each other, but because we're sharing a trip down memory lane, thinking about all the great high school lit teachers we've had. It only lasts a couple seconds, but I'm glad I interviewed Bryan. He's comfortable with the same kind of quiet reflection that I am, content with silence. I decide that I like Bryan, and hope we have a class together in the future, if only to commiserate about professors that will probably never inspire a love of teaching.