The semi-coherent, occasionally amusing, usually grammatically correct ramblings of a recovering English major.

16 October 2006

"told by an idiot, full of sound and fury" macbeth: v, v

My alma mater is adorable! They think I actually give a crap if they have some kind of emergency that they want to notify me about by email.

I just received in my junk mail inbox the following message:

In our continuing efforts to ensure our ability to provide emergency notifications from the [Nonspecific College] campus when necessary, we are testing our email capability.

Please reply back " Received " in the body of the email . Thank you.


Now, in case the fact that an email from my college went directly into my junk email box hasn't given you a clear picture of things, I'll just go ahead and let you know that I'm not really on speaking terms with the school right now. Don't get me wrong, my education was just fine and dandy and I met some of the greatest people - students, staff, and faculty alike - that I know there. However, the school and I don't speak because I'm not really pleased with the direction the school is headed in (they recently bragged that entering freshmen SAT scores were now averaging something like 1099) ...

So given my unwillingness to talk to these guys for like, you know, normal stuff, why on earth would I reply to a creepy email about emergency notifications? What possible emergencies would I, an alumna now for 7 or so years, need to be aprised of? "Alumni Emergency Alert! We need to know what color balloons you want to have at your reunion! Please reply immediately!" No way.

***

In other news, gas prices being what they are, I took the bus to and from work today, and was delighted to be approached by Nutty O'Nutahan while at the bus stop (if by "delighted" I mean "displeased"). A woman about my age, she marched up to the bus stop where about 6 people were waiting and agressively demanded the time. My mistake was being the person who answered. She parked herself next to me and started gabbing - despite no encouragement from me - about why women and senior citizens are such crappy drivers and described a recent instance where she had been driving and been cut off by an older woman and so she "flipped her the bird" as she said. Much to my relief, the bus arrived at that point and I allowed a couple of people to board between us. Noting where she sat, I moved to the opposite end of the bus and sat down and put my headphones on.

As soon as the bus started moving, this gal stood up, looked around, saw me, and - despite my lack of eye contact - moved back and parked herself next to me again. I ignored her (cause, you know - headphones) as she began to launch into another speech, until she saw that I had headphones in and tugged on my jacket sleeve until I turned to look at her and listen!"There was another incident where I was at an intersection and ...." After that point, it actually wasn't too bad; I simply nodded every couple seconds, not really listening to what she said. At one point I realized she had asked me a question and had to respond, but for the most part, I was able to just tune her out. Even still, her voice wasn't as relaxing as simply putting my head back and listening to music. I guess that's the price you pay for public transportation. Plus, you know ... the fare.

1 comment:

V. said...

That might have been the only human contact that woman had all day. Your listening might have made her day.

She also might have been a nut jobber.

Creepy about the school though, I didn't get one of those, hmm... Did you know that the SAT is out of 2400 now? So a 1099 is like a 7 on the 1600 scale. If you see our school, tell them I said to lose my number.