Touched By an Angel: The College Years

So I'm incredibly busy with readings, papers, problems, musicals, and presentations. Thus, I'm gonna recycle a great story from last year. If you've read it before, relive the memories. If not, make some new ones.

This story, like most stories, centers on something very dear to our hearts: a thong.

On arriving back to our room one night, my roommate and I were greeted by an unexpected visitor. There, hanging from our doorknob, was a pink and white striped thong. A message was scribbled on our white board, reading "I'll be by later boys..." with the “o” in boys being heart-shaped.

The silence was frightening; questions filled the still, prison-like air. “Whose butt floss is this?” “Are they really coming back or is this just a prank?” “What if my RA sees this?” “Is this mine?” I opened the door carefully, making sure not to touch the hanging cloth. We decided to leave it there and see who came by.

Sure enough, people did stop by, but none of them were the owners of the garment. To pass the time, we discussed how many STDs the thong could have. We had no idea where it had been or how many times it had been there so the decision was made to play it safe and not disturb the mysterious artifact. It remained on the doorknob overnight.

After a grueling night in which I dreamt hordes of unmentionables were performing deviant sex acts on my paralyzed body, I awoke to check on the potential biohazard just outside my dorm room. My worst fears were fulfilled with a glance out the door: the teensy cloth of death remained.

From when I took a shower in the morning to when I returned from dinner in the evening, the thong remained, taunting me constantly. “I've touched girls in places you've only dreamed about.” This only added to my distress. Not only did I have a thong on my doorknob, I had a mind-reading thong on my doorknob.

Later that night, after brushing my teeth, I walked back across the hall to my humble abode and, without thinking, grabbed the doorknob, receiving a large handful of cotton along with it. The gravity of my situation set in like a train wreck, propelling me to use my already contaminated right hand to throw the cursed underwear down the hall and out of my sight.

In the morning, it was gone. The floor was bare and there was no sign of the pink and white striped abomination. This discovery lifted a heavy burden from my heart and I felt as giddy as a school boy. I sang show tunes in the shower, much to the dismay of my floormates, and skipped down Commonwealth Avenue to class, much to the dismay of the Catholic Church.

I returned to Floor 17B after my morning class and was stopped dead in my tracks by an old nemesis. There, taped to the rafter on the ceiling of the corridor, was the thong, its pink and white bands a pastel warning of the evil to come.

But this time I noticed a change in the thong's appearance. It seemed happy, almost regal. Gone was the slumped posture that characterized our former relationship; the bad aura it had reeked of departed as well. This was a thong reborn. It was no longer a vessel for Genital Herpes, but instead a bearer of good faith and inspiration. A sign taped next to the hallway halo proclaimed the deity's new found wisdom: “Yes my son, there will always be better days.”

This thong has become a guardian goddess for the men of the 17th floor. Her Grace remains there, affixed to a rafter, showering us with love and Chlamydia as we head out into the world at large.

A Bite Size Problem

I was kidnapped.

That’s the only way to explain why there was no story last week. People kidnapped me. They grabbed me from my bed on Wednesday morning and forced me onto a plane bound for Chicago. Then they called my parents to pick me up at the airport and made me spend a whole weekend at home. Horrid, I know.

I think this had something to do with what happened earlier that week.

Let’s face it: I don’t eat very much or weigh enough. I tell myself to eat better, but I don’t. I remind myself to work out, and then forget. I write myself letters of concern, yet end up using the paper to draw pictures of dancing vegetables.

Making a list of all the things that weigh more than one hundred and twenty pounds proved too costly; the list was enormous. Look at it this way: when you go to the zoo, everything not living in the small mammal house is heavier than me.

So food isn’t something I’m a real expert on. When people ask me to recommend a nice place to eat, I tell them my percent body fat and they run away in tears. Skinniness: thou art me.

This is a touchy subject, I know. Believe me, I’m not trying to gloat or offend anyone. All of this is necessary to establish my character. Everything has relevance and I’m in complete control here. This story will go somewhere because I am completely focu-oh, look a chipmunk!

So that week prior to Thanksgiving had been a nightmare for me. Everyone was talking about food all the time; it was unnerving. I couldn’t escape the gluttony no matter where I went. The dorm, the classroom, the ghetto, Seattle Sutton’s Healthy Eating: they were all full of people fantasizing about the holiday and the amount of calories that came with it.

I tried talking to one of my more petite friends about this. She was smaller than me so I thought she would understand what I was going through.

“Isn’t all this talk about Thanksgiving getting on your nerves?”
“THANKSGIVING!?!?!”

She then proceeded to devour my notebook and began working on my forearm before I fled the scene.

There is one comfort food I will always retreat to in times of panic: cereal. It’s the chink in my armor, so to speak. I bought a box of Frosted Mini-Wheats at City Convenience and holed up in my room, away from all the ravenous mouths.

But upon pouring myself a bowl of this personal ambrosia, I was taken aback. The mini-wheats were not mini at all; they were large.

“What? Is Wayne Szalinski working for Kellogg’s now? Honey, they blew up the mini-wheats!”
“Don’t ever call me ‘honey,’” my roommate responded.
“Sorry.”

What was going on? Why was the world inflicting larger portions of food and larger quantities of food-related conversation on me? Closer inspection revealed the box to contain Frosted Mini-Wheats: Big Bite.

I’m not going to lie; this pissed me off. I didn’t want Big Bite; I wanted Mini-Wheats. Plus, the title is paradoxical. How can they be Mini-Wheats if they’re Big? Technically, it should be titled Frosted Wheats because the mini and big would cancel each other out. If the world was going to try and force its inflated consumption and bad grammar on everyone, it was going to have to go through me first.

That’s why I scheduled an appointment with the president of Kellogg’s. We met the Tuesday before break in his office and I immediately launched into my argument.

“Well, Mr. Kellogg, I suppose you are wondering why I needed to meet with you.”
“I’m not Mr. Kellogg.”
“You’re not a Kellogg?”
“No. I’m a Finkelstein.”
“Oh, well, Mr. Finkelstein, I wanted to meet with you to discuss the irritating error in the title of one of your cereals.”
“Oh, phew. I thought you were going to tell me that Special K is the title of a narcotic and I was going to have to explain that we had it first.”
“No, I mean Frosted Mini-Wheats: Big Bite. How can they be mini if they’re big?”
“What are you doing? You’re putting your nose where it don’t belong, buddy. You mess with the ‘llogg, it’ll mess right back.”
“The ‘llogg?”
“Shut up! Don’t make me call my mafia.”
“Oh, so now there’s a Kellogg’s mafia.”
“Of course. What do you think Tony the Tiger’s brothers do for a living?”
“This is stupid. You’re threatening to have a cartoon character’s blood relatives whack me for recognizing a paradox.”
“I’m going to grind your bones to make my new Scooby Doo Berry Bones.”
“This meeting is over.”
“You watch your back, English Man! Because I’m going to be Fruit Snacking on it!”

And so I left. My abductors must have been the ‘Llogg Mafia, Tony’s relatives. They made me go home, where my family forced me to eat for 25 people and their pets. And you know what, it wasn’t half bad.

Maybe I’ll try this eating phenomenon. It can’t be all bad right. I mean, everyone else is doing it. Peer pressure is always so hard to resist, and I’ve resisted so long. But what has it gotten me? Nothing really, just a waist size that’s impossible to find. I’ll try it, but I may need some time.

You can’t just jump into this kind of thing; there’s got to be repercussions, like The Bends. I don’t want to end up a Paranoid Android in My Iron Lung, wandering High and Dry around some Fake Plastic Trees because then I’ll just Sulk and blame it on a Black Star. I do it to myself, I do, and that’s what really hurts. And I don’t want to fade out again.

I’m just going to take things one Saltine at a time...