Further Retrograde

On Wednesday of last week, I was walking out of Ellis Hall with a friend of mine on our way to the free lunch provided by the Episcopalian church down the street. My companion had with him several sheets of photocopy and told me that he had to learn this material in under three hours in order to present on it.

Having delivered a presentation the previous day and with the psychological and physical effects still fresh with me, I asked with equal sincerity and hyperbole, "Are you nervous!?"

But before I could hear his reply, my attention was stolen by one of the few young men who had just walked in the opposite direction and his mocking quip, "Are you nervous?!" I immediately wanted to confront this interloper, but general timidity and the ingrained strategy of pacifism as a means of self-preservation took over. Instead I complained to my friend what a jerk he was.

But that wasn't the end of it.

Listening to another friend of mine while waiting for lunch, I realized I hadn't heard 80 percent of what he'd said. Instead, I was stewing about my missed opportunity to dole out justice four knuckles at a time.

I wanted to tell him that this isn't high school anymore. That people don't do things like this even if they want to and that there's shame in acting with such a lack of civility and, really too, originality.

This isn't high school anymore. Save your complaints for you blog, buddy.

But mostly I wanted to tell myself these things, that the world is different, that people are different once they're not 17 anymore. They're better and nicer and more considerate. I wanted to tell myself this because there I was, after the fact, wishing I would have been the kind of guy who I've been training myself to become, the kind of guy who sticks up for himself, who can't stand rude behavior on principle and calls people on it, but instead only thinking until rage dissipated into torpor, consoling myself that some guys are just jerks and I'll have something ready to say for next time--just like I did in high school.