COLUMN: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

From Nathan Smith's "South End of the Northbound," Fall 1995 From Nathan Smith's "South End of the Northbound," Fall 1995Class dismissed. I don't know for sure, but I think I pulled it off. Nobody stared as I quietly and swiftly made my way out into the hallway, away from that first graduate class. Somehow I managed to maintain some color in my face, and the quart of rubber cement in my mouth succeeded in holding up that artificial half grin especially shaped to say, "Hey, I'm a confident but not cocky graduate student who's ready to tackle the problems of the world without overly idealistic expectations of success." Then I realized that there was in fact a 300 pound man, who forgot to look down before rushing in, sitting on my chest. But after a quick "Sorry pal, this stall is taken!" I was relieved of this uncomfortable pressure. Yes, all in all, I think I came off pretty well. It was a close one too, for one student introduced himself and seemed about to shake my hand, and his firm grip would have shot my sweaty hand out like a watermelon seed. In anticipation, as he approached I tactfully blew my nose on my palm, which effectively discouraged him from such personal contact. Stomach emptied, pores drained, brain numbed, I did what any good grad student does to settle his or her nerves in times of crisis (or for that matter, in times of peace, mourning, emergency, epileptic seizure, or plain old fatigue) -- I went straight to the nearest caffeine pusher for a double espresso. Fortunately a coffee truck sat waiting just around the corner from the Graduate School of Education. He saw me coming and began rubbing his palms together, knowing full well he had a lifetime addict in need of a fix. He did seem a bit confused by the contradictory indications, like the violent facial tick in my right cheek and the way when pulling my wallet out I accidentally flung it into his truck. "Um, I think you've had enough, pal," he said out of genuine concern for my neurons, which were already firing out of control. "Shut up and fill 'er up," I barked. He complied, as any good business man would, faced with a customer on the brink of explosion. After all, he already had my wallet, although he did have to extract it from the deep fryer. He presented my billfold along with the steaming cup of java I so desperately needed. I cut the cup of 40 weight motor oil with coffee-bright-tooth-bleaching-nuclear fission-byproduct to buffer the growing ulcer in my stomach, and in a moment of silence performed a ritual uncommon to agnostics like myself -- I prayed. "Dear God who probably doesn't exist, whose name I refuse to capitalize or specify, who annointest my brain with stimulants, please let me be struck down for my numerous atrocities committed upon innocent coffee beans, for I have heartlessly ground them to dust, boiled them, and consumed their lifeblood with glee. Please -- paralysis, emphysema, flood, locusts -- anything that would demand my immediate withdrawal from graduate school!" When I opened my eyes I discovered no loss of feeling in my limbs, no unusual tumors or even phlegm in my lungs and throat, and no swarming insects consuming my flesh. What a letdown. Once again I'd proved to myself that prayer just doesn't cut it. It would seem that any such catastrophe would have to be self-inflicted. I had only begun contemplating morbid techniques for making my dismemberment look like an accident, when an internal struggle snapped me out of this reverie. "Hey, wake up! You wanted this, remember? Remember the applications, the endless financial aid requests and appeals, the apartment hunting, the U-Haul rental? So what if you have to buy $500 worth of books (approximately three texts at our local discount bookstore) and have them all read by tomorrow morning? You knew what you were getting into!" My id, the greedy little Freudian construct that it is, tried desperately to argue, using the many drawbacks at hand. "But the weather, the work, the fact that nobody around here fries every meal (including breakfast cereal)! The fact that there aren't any mud-doggin' hootin' and a hollerin' rebel-yelling Lynard Skynard-loving rednecks squealing tires around every corner!" Grasping at straws, the old id had undermined it's own argument. "Look, I'll grant you that the weather blows. But you can make the food yourself, if you miss it so much. And you hate those beer bellied Budweiser bandits anyway, with their ridiculous glasspacks and jacked up tires, and the mud they intentionally spray over the sides of their trucks and don't wash off for weeks just to hide the big Toyota lettering. "Remember the beer bottle winged at you from just such a vehicle, accompanied with shouts of 'damned hippie.' Do you honestly miss that? Are you genuinely disappointed that you haven't seen a single person with that tobacco bulge in their lower lip, steel-toed boots, and a confederate flag T-shirt with the slogan 'Malcolm who?' printed underneath the blue 'X' of southern rebellion? You were disgusted by that, remember? "Anyway, people do squeal their tires around every corner here, often spinning out on unsuspecting pedestrians. And if you really miss the excitement of being abused by mental midgets on a regular basis, just start protesting police brutality." Not to be outdone, the id pulled a one-two sucker punch. "But the incredible debt! You're going to be up to your neck in unsubsidized loans, and trying to pay them back through a job in education! You'll fall through the cracks! You'll have to sell your grandmother into slavery to pay it off." Then superego brought the argument to a dead halt: "Hey, what about the kids? What about making a difference? What about helping the impoverished, the oppressed, the needy?" Now that was hitting below the belt. The truth spouted by my superego couldn't be ignored. I swear, that one part of my psyche causes more trouble than it's worth. So I swallowed my bitter insecurities, and uttered a small disclaimer, "Hey you big, cuddly, omnipresent, omniscient, omnisexual force you, if you really are out there please disregard all aforementioned requests until the next time I fall into utter desperation (probably later this evening) sincerely your pal, Nathan." Knowing full well that disclaimers are as futile as prayers, I didn't fret about any real acts of retribution, and went on to take care of business. I mean, we all have our moments of crisis (at least one every few hours); we just can't forget the reasons why we have to go on. And as for grandmother, she'd never fetch the cost of tuition.