May 13, 2004 - 3:10 PM

Downtrodden Dumpings With a Smile

Even though I'm not feeling as down today as I was a few days ago when I wrote my last entry (in fact, I'm downright chipper comparatively), I'm going to keep up with the "life sucks" theme here, although there will be some irony and humor to keep it from getting too dumpy.

Let's begin about a month ago, ok? Why, paulkim, what happened a month ago? Well, I was involved in another automobile accident is what.

sidebar: do you ever have fun mis-syllablizing words? I do. Like not prouncing the abbreviation of "television" as TEE-vee (trochee) or tee-VEE (iamb), but as TEE-VEE (spondee)? I just did it in my mind as I was typing "automobile", enunciating it as "aw-toe-MOE-beal" and getting a little giggle out of myself. That's the buried English Major in me trying to claw its way out of the grave.

On my way to school to substitute, I was stopped at a traffic light, holding in the far right lane, ready to make the right-hand turn, when I felt a thwack and a jerk. The light turned green, I pulled forward, around the turn, and then parked at the curb to see what had happened. A girl in a silver coupe pulled up behind me. She had smacked into my rear driver's-side bumper hard enough so that the bumper panel section split off from the body panel section, leaving it flapping in the wind on the side, but still fully attached to the rear. The bumper was in no danger of falling off, but it still was unsightly.

I walked up to her car with my information and saw that she was around my age, perhaps a little younger, and quite stunned. She apologized all over the place and let me take down her info, then I gave her my phone number and she gave me hers. No, not THAT way. I'm not tacky enough to try to pick up girls who hit me. Well, if they hit ON me, then maybe. But not car-collision-wise. She asked that we settle this without having to go through our insurance companies, assuring me that she would pay for any damages out of her own pocket.

After school, I went to my usual auto bodyshop and got an estimate. When I told the girl what the total was, she decided that it would be best if we DID go through her insurance company to have them pay for the repairs. And it all went off without a hitch. Her insurance company contacted me and made sure that I knew what was going on; they set me up with a car rental; and they worked everything out with the bodyshop. The only problem occurred when I scratched the front bumper of the rental car while making a turn into a driveway. Scraped off some paint to the frame. I could have returned the car without pointing it out because when I first got it, it had a lot of scrapes and scratches on it already, and this would have flown under the radar. But nooooo, I had to be all guilty and responsible and show the rental agent what I did. $400 to repair it. *sigh*

Then two weeks ago, I watched a special on ABC about cheating in school, from junior high through college. And boy was THAT depressing. Where is the moral compass of this country going? Not only using the internet to plagiarize and copy for term papers, but using cell phones, palm pilots, and other electronic gizmos to bring answers to tests. Then they use excuses like, oh, cheating is rampant in the corporate world, so we need to learn how to do it in school so that we don't get left behind; or, there's all this pressure about getting into a good college with good grades, it doesn't matter how you "earn" those grades; or, I had so much work to do, it was 1 in the morning by the time I got to the paper, so I just copied and pasted on my computer. Whiners. Suck it up and take responsibility!

Of course, I should probably listen to that advice myself.

Don't even get me started on the cheating and lackadaisical attitudes I see when I'm substitute teaching. Egads. And LDBL admits that it occurs even when he's teaching. Did you cheat when you were in school?

A few nights ago I saw Erin McKeown again at Largo. She was accompanied only by a drummer this time, and, while the show was fun and energetic, it wasn't as rompin' stompin' as the last time she was here with a full band. A good portion of the audience seemed to be there for the opener, David Poe (who was quite good), and they left during Erin's set, which left a not-so-full room to cheer her on. And the fans were pretty lackluster, not even mustering up enough applause at the end to bring Erin back for an encore.

Now Listening To : Leona Naess-I Tried to Rock You But You Only Roll (oh my god this album is absolute perfection)
Random Thought : With wedding season upon us, half of my visitors have come here by searching for "Best Man Speech". Be original, ya mooks!

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