Menace II Society

I hope that someday I can make this blog into a place where I weigh in on deep issues, make astute observations, perhaps give my readers a new perspective on something...

Today is not that day. Instead I'm going to tell you (for not the first and certainly not the last time) a story about how I made an ass of myself today. Ready?

This is finals week where I work. This means I have a ton of grading to do. Unfortunately I am almost incapable of grading at home. Home has too many things to do other than grading so I typically go to a restaurant, park myself there, and tip heavily. Tonight I decided to try a local Thai restaurant. It's a pretty small place and a little family was at the only four-top so I sat at a little two-top, placed my order and started to get organized. While I was separating the finals into a stack for each of the three versions, I got a whiff of someone toasting marshmallows. Despite the fact that I hadn't gotten my dinner I immediately started fantasizing about ordering whatever it was that smelled like roasted marshmallows. Here's a neat tidbit: If you put your napkin on top of a candle it ignites and smells like smores. Yup, in the midst of all of my organizing I had set stuff on top of the burning candle at my table. By the time I realized what was going on the napkin was pretty well engulfed so I picked it up and walked toward the bar to ask for a glass of water. One of the other customers was nice enough to let me extinguish it in her ice water.

Take a moment and imagine how mortifying it was to set my napkin on fire and have to douse it in someone else's water.

I'll wait.


OK, now try to imagine how extra mortifying it is, after the napkin fire/dousing experience, to return to the table and discover that the final exams were now on fire. Seriously. I'm not sure it's possible for me to be a bigger horse's ass. Fortunately, copier type paper doesn't burn nearly as fast as a paper napkin so I was able to bat this one out with my hand. At this point I blew out the candle, put all my grading stuff away, ate my food, and left.

I don't think I'm going to do any more grading tonight.