COLUMN: "Incest and the Language Test"

From Zelig Kurland's "Bacon for Breakfast," Spring '92 Let's start with Christmas, when I met Darlina's dad. "Pleased to meet ya, sir!" I said. "Call me Elrod," he said, pointing to his belt buckle for confirmation. "Pull my finger." I did, of course, and he farted right when I did it. I love that joke. Elrod told me about his days in high school. He'd go to 7-11 and, whenever anybody gave him some lip, he'd cross his arms and ask, "Boy, do you know what Elrod is?" Then, his buddies would come up beside him all dressed in Wranglers and tell it: "Your worst nightmare." Then they'd open up a can of whoop-ass. Sure he sounds a little mean, but he told me about the five B's of life: beer, bucks, babes, bowlin' and brawlin'. Anyway, when I returned to West Virginia over break, I did some final touches on the Bondo job I'd started over Christmas and headed over to Darlina's. I hadn't heard from her for almost a month. Sending letters to an illiterate always seemed so pointless. It turns out her mom died when their pit bull ran amuck last February. Darlina was upset, and I wasn't there for her. Elrod was devastated. I guess it was only natural that they hooked up. "That's not fair," I told her. "He kept warning me about not getting too fresh with you, and then he goes and . . . " "Shut up!" she said. "He treats me a lot better than you ever did. You're so cheap." "Cheap?" "Yes, every time we go to Denny's you make me sneak out with you before paying the bill, and you always steal those rental shoes from the bowling alley. You know I hate velcro." "I want you back," I groveled. "I'll buy you a New Kids poster." "No deal. Got two already." I was stupid enough to go complain to Elrod about stealing my girl. "Why don't you find someone your own age to replace your wife?" I asked. "Boy," he said, "Do you know what Elrod is?" I ran for it. All this brings me to my point: the Romance Languages Department just plain sucks. Every week I waste four hours in Williams Hall -- Penn's high school simulator -- taking Spanish 140, and it's definitely something worth whining about. Like most everyone else, I almost never pay attention. Like most everyone else I'd rather be spending tuition bucks taking a real class. Let's work this out: I took Spanish both semesters last year. That two of eight credits, or $5000 out of $20,000 (using Sernovitz figures). I'm taking it this semester as one of five classes. This lands another $2000 in the hole. A total of $7000: the equivalent of 4118 round trips to South Jersey. Seven grand gone to waste just because some committee decided a few years back that it would be politically correct for College students to be able to say what they did over break in a second language. Yeah, I could consider it a minor nuisance or "just one those things," but wasting away like that is just so pointless. I could be home listening to Bryan Adams' "Reckless" album or playing with Wilbur. Thus I abhor the idea of being coerced into taking such an insipid class. The Romance Languages department couldn't care less. I didn't offer them a bribe to change my proficiency test scores because I knew they'd get a power trip out of wrecking my transcript. But I've seriously considered it. I informed Language Coordinator Gus Puleo that the T.A. I had for Spanish 130 didn't teach me a thing. I knew more Spanish after 120 than I did after 130. "Don't tell me that," he said. "I don't want to hear that." Gosh, sorry. Maybe there's a language requirement because it's cheaper for the University to hire T.A.s off the street than to hire real professors to teach real courses. And according to College junior and friend Kent Mortimer, his instructor only attended class half the time because he "couldn't find a parking spot" or "had to do a paper." That works out to about 26 absences, far more than we as students get. The T.A. I have this semester is fine, but how can she teach when not a student in the room gives a damn? Everyone gets ripped off: The teacher can't do his job, students fulfilling their requirements are wasting time they could be spending doing nothing or maybe actually learning something and students who really want to learn Spanish are held back by the prevailing classroom apathy. Wouldn't it be cheaper just to go to Spain if you really wanted to learn Spanish anyway? The only people who aren't really pissed are the freshmen. They'll find out how bad it really is when they learn about dissonance in Psych 1. Please, Undergraduate Assembly, spare us from this grave injustice. Take a vote, use your know-how and resources to find out that we'd all be so much happier if -- at the very least -- they pared the venerable Language Requirement down to two semesters. Years from now I'm only going to remember that much anyway -- the amount I learned in high school. Have them teach Redneck English: show the Yanks how to translate "Jimmy returned after hunting for possum, but Jerod had already left in the Ford" into "Jimmy come up the creek plumb full of possum, but Jerod and the four-by be done gone." Oh, did I get off track? Sorry. You can throw stuff at me when Filthy Penny Jr. plays on Thursday at the Underground. Zelig Kurland is a sophomore English major from Charleston, West Virginia. "Bacon for Breakfast" appears alternate Tuesdays.