04 April 2011

An example Of Life imitating Art

When Blockhead came into the office and started talking about coming back to school in the Fall, I didn't even flinch. I knew that one of us had to be confused, and there was a pretty good chance it was him. So I calmly asked him how much longer he had in the program, and what classes he needed to take in the Fall.
He told me that he is graduating in Technology Management this semester, but he wants to come back and get his degree in Construction Management as well. This will take him at least another two years.

I should have been distressed, to say the least. I should have felt some twang of sorrow and remorse at this news. But I was in a bit of an emotional state on the day of this abrupt announcement, so I found it difficult - nay, impossible - to conjure any of the appropriate emotions.

If anything, I felt giddy. Like the desperate cackles of a man on the verge of insanity, as he watches the proverbial last straw fall into place and shatter what was left of his reality.

I'm not actually going insane, and my reality is (more or less) still intact, but the metaphor remains apt.

I can hear the desperate cackling in my mind, and while you might think it would disturb me, I'm in fact quite amused. I've become a spectator at a very witty play. There I am, fanning myself with a program and nudging the person next to me, "See that? Isn't that hilarious? Predictable and a bit formulaic, of course, but won't it be frightfully amusing to watch the upcoming antics of our poor protagonist?"

And so we, myself included, wait to see how I will react. As we've learned from "I Love Lucy" it's not what happens to the characters that makes us laugh, it's how those characters react. We don't know how one reaction will exponentially affect another, only that it ends with the improbable and highly ridiculous climax of me standing at a moving conveyor belt of chocolates, hysterically shoving them into my mouth as fast as I can.

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