The Trip and Fall
I may have alluded to this in the "Top Ten Reasons I'm Going to Hell" entry back in July (a Roomus classic), but I didn't fully explain the story. Because I am in the business of humiliating myself, I figured I'd write out the whole story. In case the Santa Claus - guy on respirator didn't make me a shoe-in for meeting Cerberus himself, I think this one pretty much puts a nail right in the proverbial coffin (no pun intended?). Here goes.
Sophomore year, I took a class in teaching special education. (As a side story, I was once talking to a cute guy after a class one day during the semester I was taking this special ed methods class. He asked me if I had any other classes that day, and I said, "Yeah, special ed." And all of a sudden, his voice changed tone completely to a kindergarten-level, "Ohhhh! Isn't that GREAT... I ADMIRE you SO MUCH for TRYING to MAKE IT." I tried to explain that I wasn't a special ed student - not that there was anything wrong with that - but rather preparing to TEACH the special education children, but it was really for a loss.) So anyhow, I was in this class. It was a pretty crazy class. Actually, as another side story, the professor would always use an impression of a disability to illustrate it. So he'd be up in front of class reading from the book when all of a sudden he'd start swearing like a madman. About five minutes into it, he'd say that was what Tourette's would be like for a student in our class. It didn't matter that we were reading about eugenics or Helen Keller. He'd do whatever disability he wanted. It was really insane. This is a typical exchange:
"So, Professor, did Helen Keller ever split from Annie Sullivan?"
"No, you stupid fuck bitch ass."
"Umm, okay. Are you alright?"
"Yes I'm fucking fine you asshole."
"Right."
"Fuck you. So, do you see now how Tourette's can affect a student?"
Umm, right. That's what happened in that class. I don't know if he should be awarded an Oscar or a stay at a mental asylum, but either way, he made it interesting.
So, he also had guest speakers come to class. They would talk about their disabilities and how it affected them in everyday life. In the middle of the term, we had this guy come speak to us. He was heavy-duty disabled, according to my professor (everyone should have a politically incorrect special education professor just to add a few notches to the awkward/uncomfortable factor inevitable in every class like this). He was physically disabled, because he walked with braces attached to his forearms. And he was mentally disabled because he was semi-retarded (in the actual medical definition of the word) and he was emotionally stunted at the age of 12. The guy had it rough to begin with, and then he met me.
He had just finished giving a speech, and our class had to complete a quiz. While we worked, he talked with my professor, and at one point, my friend got up to leave early after finishing her quiz - only she forgot her scarf. Right after she left, so did the speaker. And, trying to mean well, I ran out after my friend with her scarf in my hand to give her before she left the building.
I'm trying to walk quickly to catch up with her. I see the speaker guy to my right, trying to get down the hallway, putting one brace solidly in front of the other. And I see the doors, where the hallway narrows, so that it might be a tight squeeze with his obtuse-angled braces. I have about two seconds to make the decision whether to let the speaker go ahead of me, get through the doorway, and give up on getting my friend her scarf, or I can choose to go ahead and try to squeeze by him with the braces and make it with the scarf. I choose option B, and cement my place in Dante's fifth circle.
In a split second, a horrible moment that will play out in movie-time slow motion with "Nooooooooo" echoing in that ghoulish voice in the backtrack, my foot catches on one of his braces. And he all falls down. I hear a huge crash, followed my a cry, followed by a gasp of horror (I think it's mine, but seeing as though the class is in the School of Theology classroom building, I wouldn't be totally shocked if God himself came in to give his judgment here). I look to find my friend, but she's bailed on me. Now, not only have I tripped a certified crippled man, but I have not returned my friend's scarf either. Score two for world, none for me.
I look down at the heap that is this man, and I decide to try to pick him up as quietly as possible. I hear my professor say in the room down the hall, "What the fuck was that?" I'm not sure if it's his next Tourette's impression or a justifiable reaction to the catastrophic crash in the hall. Inexplicably (and, because of my lame plan of action, thankfully), he doesn't come into the hall right away.
The guy is lying on the ground, sprawled out. I'm a mess. I feel like a horrible, horrible person who should have to wear a sign that says so, and I decide to get one side of him up at at a time. As soon as I get one side up, I move to get the other brace in place and he slides back down to the floor. I see a tear start to form in his eyes. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god oh god. I'm going to hell. I accept it as a legitimate punishment. I try to help him up again, and with this failure, instead of just returning to the floor, he gets into a fetal position and suddenly I'm faced with the sad fact that I might have made this guy regress from the 12 year old emotional state he was in to a newborn. Way to go. Sign me up for education.
In the next instant, my professor shows up outside, sees the mess, takes a look at me and asks, "What the hell?"
I'm left with nothing. I've been offering this guy repeated apologies - "I'm so sorry. So sorry. I am an awful, awful person. I should die. This is horrible. Do you want to trip me, to be even? " - but nothing seems to make anything better. My professor, a weird but ultimately kind man, helps the guy to his feet, and brings him back to the class to calm himself. We are dismissed early so this guy can be counseled (my classmates think that this is the greatest thing, showing that sometimes, even future teachers have no sensitivity whatsoever). I'm finishing up my quiz and waiting to tell my professor and the guy again how sorry I am when I decide to check my messages, while they finish talking.
I have one message on my cell phone: "Hey, it's me. I left my scarf in class. It's no big deal, I have another one with me, but I was hoping you could just take it home and I'll get it from you tomorrow.... my mom made it for me, so I don't want some janitor to throw it away."
I look around for the scarf and can't find it. I go into the hall, and it's not there. I return to the classroom to gather my stuff and begin cursing myself - for the zillionth time that day - about how priceless it is that I tripped a cripple to give my friend her scarf when she didn't even need it at the moment and in the end, I lost it anyhow, when I look up at my professor and my victim. And then I see it. Around his neck is the familiar bright red and blue knit of my friend's scarf that her mother made.
Yeah, I give up. I decide right then and there that I'm not even going to go through the motions of asking this guy to remove the scarf that my professor's tied nicely around his neck. Nope. Forget it. She's living without her scarf, that's how it is. I live with myself, she lives without her scarf.
Nobody ends up happy in this story, which is what compromise really is, and so I figure that I can assign that term to this miserable story: I trip a crippled man to help my friend, my friend loses her scarf, the crippled man inherits it. In a way, it is like life comes full-circle, no?
No, of course not.
But I like it better that way.
Sophomore year, I took a class in teaching special education. (As a side story, I was once talking to a cute guy after a class one day during the semester I was taking this special ed methods class. He asked me if I had any other classes that day, and I said, "Yeah, special ed." And all of a sudden, his voice changed tone completely to a kindergarten-level, "Ohhhh! Isn't that GREAT... I ADMIRE you SO MUCH for TRYING to MAKE IT." I tried to explain that I wasn't a special ed student - not that there was anything wrong with that - but rather preparing to TEACH the special education children, but it was really for a loss.) So anyhow, I was in this class. It was a pretty crazy class. Actually, as another side story, the professor would always use an impression of a disability to illustrate it. So he'd be up in front of class reading from the book when all of a sudden he'd start swearing like a madman. About five minutes into it, he'd say that was what Tourette's would be like for a student in our class. It didn't matter that we were reading about eugenics or Helen Keller. He'd do whatever disability he wanted. It was really insane. This is a typical exchange:
"So, Professor, did Helen Keller ever split from Annie Sullivan?"
"No, you stupid fuck bitch ass."
"Umm, okay. Are you alright?"
"Yes I'm fucking fine you asshole."
"Right."
"Fuck you. So, do you see now how Tourette's can affect a student?"
Umm, right. That's what happened in that class. I don't know if he should be awarded an Oscar or a stay at a mental asylum, but either way, he made it interesting.
So, he also had guest speakers come to class. They would talk about their disabilities and how it affected them in everyday life. In the middle of the term, we had this guy come speak to us. He was heavy-duty disabled, according to my professor (everyone should have a politically incorrect special education professor just to add a few notches to the awkward/uncomfortable factor inevitable in every class like this). He was physically disabled, because he walked with braces attached to his forearms. And he was mentally disabled because he was semi-retarded (in the actual medical definition of the word) and he was emotionally stunted at the age of 12. The guy had it rough to begin with, and then he met me.
He had just finished giving a speech, and our class had to complete a quiz. While we worked, he talked with my professor, and at one point, my friend got up to leave early after finishing her quiz - only she forgot her scarf. Right after she left, so did the speaker. And, trying to mean well, I ran out after my friend with her scarf in my hand to give her before she left the building.
I'm trying to walk quickly to catch up with her. I see the speaker guy to my right, trying to get down the hallway, putting one brace solidly in front of the other. And I see the doors, where the hallway narrows, so that it might be a tight squeeze with his obtuse-angled braces. I have about two seconds to make the decision whether to let the speaker go ahead of me, get through the doorway, and give up on getting my friend her scarf, or I can choose to go ahead and try to squeeze by him with the braces and make it with the scarf. I choose option B, and cement my place in Dante's fifth circle.
In a split second, a horrible moment that will play out in movie-time slow motion with "Nooooooooo" echoing in that ghoulish voice in the backtrack, my foot catches on one of his braces. And he all falls down. I hear a huge crash, followed my a cry, followed by a gasp of horror (I think it's mine, but seeing as though the class is in the School of Theology classroom building, I wouldn't be totally shocked if God himself came in to give his judgment here). I look to find my friend, but she's bailed on me. Now, not only have I tripped a certified crippled man, but I have not returned my friend's scarf either. Score two for world, none for me.
I look down at the heap that is this man, and I decide to try to pick him up as quietly as possible. I hear my professor say in the room down the hall, "What the fuck was that?" I'm not sure if it's his next Tourette's impression or a justifiable reaction to the catastrophic crash in the hall. Inexplicably (and, because of my lame plan of action, thankfully), he doesn't come into the hall right away.
The guy is lying on the ground, sprawled out. I'm a mess. I feel like a horrible, horrible person who should have to wear a sign that says so, and I decide to get one side of him up at at a time. As soon as I get one side up, I move to get the other brace in place and he slides back down to the floor. I see a tear start to form in his eyes. Oh god. Oh god oh god oh god oh god. I'm going to hell. I accept it as a legitimate punishment. I try to help him up again, and with this failure, instead of just returning to the floor, he gets into a fetal position and suddenly I'm faced with the sad fact that I might have made this guy regress from the 12 year old emotional state he was in to a newborn. Way to go. Sign me up for education.
In the next instant, my professor shows up outside, sees the mess, takes a look at me and asks, "What the hell?"
I'm left with nothing. I've been offering this guy repeated apologies - "I'm so sorry. So sorry. I am an awful, awful person. I should die. This is horrible. Do you want to trip me, to be even? " - but nothing seems to make anything better. My professor, a weird but ultimately kind man, helps the guy to his feet, and brings him back to the class to calm himself. We are dismissed early so this guy can be counseled (my classmates think that this is the greatest thing, showing that sometimes, even future teachers have no sensitivity whatsoever). I'm finishing up my quiz and waiting to tell my professor and the guy again how sorry I am when I decide to check my messages, while they finish talking.
I have one message on my cell phone: "Hey, it's me. I left my scarf in class. It's no big deal, I have another one with me, but I was hoping you could just take it home and I'll get it from you tomorrow.... my mom made it for me, so I don't want some janitor to throw it away."
I look around for the scarf and can't find it. I go into the hall, and it's not there. I return to the classroom to gather my stuff and begin cursing myself - for the zillionth time that day - about how priceless it is that I tripped a cripple to give my friend her scarf when she didn't even need it at the moment and in the end, I lost it anyhow, when I look up at my professor and my victim. And then I see it. Around his neck is the familiar bright red and blue knit of my friend's scarf that her mother made.
Yeah, I give up. I decide right then and there that I'm not even going to go through the motions of asking this guy to remove the scarf that my professor's tied nicely around his neck. Nope. Forget it. She's living without her scarf, that's how it is. I live with myself, she lives without her scarf.
Nobody ends up happy in this story, which is what compromise really is, and so I figure that I can assign that term to this miserable story: I trip a crippled man to help my friend, my friend loses her scarf, the crippled man inherits it. In a way, it is like life comes full-circle, no?
No, of course not.
But I like it better that way.
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