officially old

So the thing is I am officially old now.

Yeah. It just...I don't know....happened or something.

This semester I have to take a math class, and not just any math class, mind you... the one you have to take when you score excruciatingly low on your ELM test. I have to pass this just so I can fill my last general education requirement: a course like statistics or something that in some way involves math. I have successfully avoided this until now.

So anyway the median age (note the use of a mathematical term... it is one, right?) of the class is around twelve or so, I think. Presumably they are mostly freshmen, and I must say there are a considerable number of students involved in the rather passionately embraced (on this campus) sport known as football, as well. I'm just saying. I'm in there, too. So clearly I can't say much.

The first day of class I broke out in a slight sweat when I realized what is in store for me for the next 18 weeks or so. There are over 300 people in this class, and for some reason on the first day there was a lot of shoving and crowding going on... One girl literally pushed me out of the way so she and her friend could sit together next to someone else. They were laughing obnoxiously at the time. I felt like Kathy Bates in that parking lot scene in Fried Green Tomatoes.

The poor professor--whom I must admire for attempting to be funny and make the class light and enjoyable--endures mocking criticism, laughter, cell phones ringing, and 'students' talking to one another as if they were out to lunch instead of in a classroom. They yell across the room, saying things like "Yo bitch, what up?" and "Yeah I'll slap dat ass bring it."

Working in the ghetto has accustomed me to this sort of thing and I am perhaps even more comfortable with it than a lot of people. But...in class? At college?

I have to resist the urge to say something like, "Wow that's really rude," or "Does your mother know you are behaving like this?"

So here is the story that really epitomizes the whole situation. The defining moment when my great and voluptuous accumulation of years became clearest to me:

The professor (who is about my age) was attempting to keep our attention, or endear himself to us...or perhaps just amuse himself for the sake of his own sanity, and made yet another rather corny joke. In that instant, as my admiration and pity for this man grew larger, the girl behind me said this:

"Eeeeew... old guy trying to be funny. Gross." (make sure you read 'gross' with about three syllables)

Yeah. Seriously. It was then that I knew. I am not only 'old', but I am a different species. Or something. Clearly I am somewhere I do not belong. I had a little word with God right then, telling Him I know He usually either has me somewhere for a purpose, or at the very least brings good out of crappy situations.

But come on now.

A. It's a math class.
B. Yeah.

So we shall see. And if God finds something good in this situation for me, you will hear about it. Like, so totally.