Coupon? Que-pon? Q-pin?

                So, I’m jobless. Big shock. However I have taken to doing weird and bizarre odd jobs to pass the time or until I can find some sort of gainful employment. So this week’s adventure included handing out coupons booklets around the city of Ames for the students to feast upon during the upcoming semester. 

                Yesterday wasn’t so bad. I talked to people I knew and most I didn’t. Landed on my ass due to black ice (thank god polyester dries quickly). By the end of it I was exhausted and couldn’t wait to get home. However, today was a motherfucking mess. I’m good at playing the shutdown game but today I just couldn’t. I shut down my face and looked blank and dumb but today I felt ashamed. Downright ashamed.

For many reasons:

1.       Seeing college students happy with their classes filled with hope that their degree will get them somewhere. Seeing them talk with their friends about their first week and how exciting it was. I never really had anyone to share in that occasion with. Not just that but there was a part of me wanting to scream at them “RUN! IT’S ALL A LIE!!!! DEGREES DON’T GET YOU SHIT IN THE REAL WORLD!” But who was I to judge?  Now a decade over the typical college age starter, I am now a jaded and cynical adult.  Or maybe I have seen too many people get fucked over by getting degrees they THINK will get them the job they truly desire. Or perhaps, I just gave up on my dreams and that part of me is long dead.

a.       I always dreamed I would be a globe-trotting writer communicating with people that I’d never met in places I hadn’t ever heard of.  I like to think of myself as a writer, but as a good friend once put it, “You’re not published so you are not a writer.” There is most likely a big hunk of truth that anyone has ever given me. Give to me by someone I secretly had a giant crush on and maybe had the blossoming beginnings of love’s first kiss. To make matters even worse, while handing out said coupons- I bumped into him. I gave him an awkward hugs, exchanged greetings with a choked out “the quickest line is that away.” I wanted the floor to swallow me up at that moment because not only was that awkward but it just reminded me of how much of my education I had wasted and if I had worked harder maybe I wouldn’t be where I am at this very moment.

2.       Lectures.

a.        Everyone was giving them to me today.

                                                               i.        From my impact on global pollution (F.Y.I shit rooster, paper is Biodegradable. Your I-Pad on the other hand is NOT).

                                                             ii.      Some guy functioning to “stealth mode” to run away.

                                                            iii.      ‘I feel so bad for you’ so I’m just going to take this. Yes, someone did say that to me.

                                                           iv.      ‘I’m better than you’ stares

Needless to say by the end of the day I was mess.  Haunted by my failures, plagues by people and wishing to wander off into the crowd and be lost. On the other hand, it was an interesting assessment of the human condition.  It gave an idea on how quickly the zombie virus could spread. Or who is an athletes and who are studying to be engineers. Attitudes toward other people are either hot, cold, oblivious or utterly indifferent.  I could help but to wonder what attitude am I?