Thoughts From TDU While Not Doing My Homework

So…I bought two used books today. I couldn’t help it. I was going to the library, and POW! There was a book sale. Fifty cents for a paperback, a buck for a hardcover. It was a set up. They heard I was coming today and ambushed me.

First off—I was lied to. Many of those books were not used at all, but mint condition trade paperbacks. The covers were perfect, the pages weren’t bent, and there wasn’t a food stain to be seen. They smelled good too. So I got two books: The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brain, and Idlewild by Nick Sagan. I’ve always wanted to read TTTC but never got around to it. Now’s my chance. As for Idlewild, I’d never heard of it, but the book had a glowing blurb on the cover from Neil Gaiman, which was good enough for me. Also, according to Sagan’s About-the-Author blurb, he’s Carl Sagan’s son, graduated from OMFG Wonderful University, wrote scripts in Hollywood for the best movies ev4r, and is much more talented than you, me, and everyone else. That was worth four bits right there.

The way I see it, okay okay okay, I spent money on books I don’t have time to read, but at Borders the same books in the same condition would cost me $29.30, so I just saved myself twenty-eight bucks. Hurray for fiscal responsibility.

The problem was that I ran into this guy from one of my film classes who wanted to know what class the O’Brian book was for, because apparently everyone and their cousin reads The Things They Carried for GWRIT 103. I told him I tested out of that class. That was the wrong answer.

This, to me, is the big difference between high school and college. In high school, if you read a book you don’t have to, you’re a nerd and should be put in social quarantine in case it’s contagious. In college if you’re reading voluntarily, you’re not taking enough credit hours and you’re a lazy pus. It didn’t occur to me to tell the guy it was for ENG 493 until much too late to do me any good.


And one more thing. I’m looking at the nutrition label for a bag of popcorn and it tells me that if I eat the corn kernels, that’s 130 calories. Once I pop it, though, and I eat the whole bag, that’s just 30 calories. Where do the other 100 calories go? The law of conservation of energy says they have to go somewhere. Do they evaporate? Does the bag absorb them? Do diet gnomes spirit them away? If so, can they work their magic on chocolate instead?

I don’t care. This popcorn is too crunchy and tastes like eight miles of ass. I’m getting a bagel.