A Story I Think You'll Enjoy

So I get to my psychoanalysis class tonight, sit in my usual seat up front, the better to admire my sensei. I sit off to the side, not right in the middle, so as not to be blinded by the brilliance. You know what "they" say: look ye not into the eyes of God, etc. I have all my shit (purse, laptop bag, grocery bag full of rutabagas and five varieties of apples and cardamom and plastic wrap) leaned up against the chair next to me that no one is sitting in, that no one ever sits in, because few are brave enough to be in such close proximity to the sun - my forty or so classmates are dispersed throughout the large-ish room all the way to the back, though they could easily sit closer (if they had the balls to do so). 


We started Derrida's "To Speculate on Freud" tonight - I'm sure I need not remind you of the density of that one (if you know Derrida, you know that much and if you don't know Derrida - don't it just sound real hard?). I only read a few pages, and that was enough for me to know that it's par for the course Derrida (as in, purposefully unintelligible), and I'm gonna need to pay close attention to the crumbs of knowledge tumbling from my liege's mouth into my earballs, and flowing out through my fingers onto my mystic writing pad. There I am tippity typing away, it's about ten minutes in and I already have a full page of notes. Then this girl comes in. I don't recognize her - but I don't really recognize anyone in the class that I didn't know already when the school year started. They're all newbies, and annoying ones at that. Anyway, she comes in ten minutes late. My deft master is easily distracted by late arrivals, early departures, trips to the bathroom, slight coughs, running of one's hands through one's hair, irregular blinking, etc. He stopped the lecture to make sure she signed the attendance sheet. She took it from him, and then sat down next to me, in the chair at the foot of which my shit was piled. I mean like, whatever, but goddammit there's a lot of empty seats in that big room, why you gotta pick that one?

She asks to borrow one of my pens - I have a blue one and a black one to satisfy my moderately anal underlining needs - I pause a split-end too long - she says "just for a second" and gestures toward the attendance sheet. "Sure" I whisper-grunt. (Translation: my pen! you've got my pen!). 

She pulls out her laptop. She let's it sit there for a moment. She leans back in her chair, all cozily. She opens the laptop. She types a text message on her phone - on a low setting, not silent - which is on the desk next to her laptop. She starts typing aggressively. Occasionally she stops, shuts her laptop, sits back comfortably. I assume she's low on juice, as I burn rubber on my plugged up machine. A couple of times her phone rings, she looks at it, doesn't stop it. About ten minutes before the end of class, she stops typing and makes a sound - shock, dismay, annoyance, some such sound. It's hot n' heavy at this point - my wrist is hurting from typing so much so hard so fast - after a full day of typing at work. She tries to get my attention, she's trying to tell me something, what is it? What is it girl? Is there a fire at the old barn? Oh your laptop died? You didn't bring your plug, and also didn't bring a notebook or a pen to your graduate philosophy class? Oh wait a second, I don't give a fuck! And I just fucking missed the last seven words spilled from the mouthbox of mine guru goddamn you! Never mind, she said, closed her laptop, and sat back again. Would that that were the end. WOULD! 82 or so seconds later, and I swear she does this just to piss me off, she digs around in her bag for what will eventually come to smell like a eucalyptus cough drop. She moves it around in her mouth, slurps on it loudly, clacks it against her teeth. An eternity goes by in those last few minutes - I envision epic intergalactic wars, natural disasters, the dying of the sun - all the while she is sucking and clacking. And then it's 9:50. Fin.