Day 1

Rebekah is gone for a week, so I have to pick up some of her chores such as writing on the blog. I stopped crying for the first time since her departure about five minutes ago, so I better start before I become blurry-eyed again.

Here is a tale of a library slob.

For about a month, another student has been studying a couple desks from mine, and makes no effort to hide the breaking of every point of etiquette. It was customary for the nerds of antiquity to read aloud during their library visits. With the different views on the use of violence in those days, it’s not hard to imagine why they stopped. My new neighbor has been trying his best to reintroduce this custom by muttering incoherently to himself at various volumes. This is forgivable. But why is his desk surrounded by several plastic bags? Why did one of those bags contain a week-old pint of spoiled milk? Why does he eat half of his lunch and leave the rest to “ripen” overnight? -Last week it was Chinese, this week three-day-old chicken fingers and fries. Dare we hope for a heart attack? That was mean. I'm sorry - Something tells me that the pair of fingernail clippers on the desk will not be used with a garbage can. This last week, I had mostly forgotten about him until I nearly stepped on his face. There he was looking at an article, stretched on his side, his right leg propped up forming a neat triangle with his thigh. A few seconds later, he got up and sat back in his chair, apparently remembering the basic principle, laying on the beach to read = trendy; reading while sprawled out on a filthy library carpet = embarrassing. At least he wasn’t reading out loud.