On the Lam

In response to the ceaseless barrage of endearing emails from my exclusive (read: virtually nonexistent) base of readers, I would like to explain my recent hiatus from OTR. Much like Luke over at Uselees and Pointless, I've been in class, learning about current insurance policy in order to pass a state licensing test. Since Monday, I've been forced to rise an hour and a half earlier than normal, drive almost forty-five minutes to Portland's exceptionally lame suburb of Beaverton, and sit with a roomful of middle-aged women who want to sell insurance. I have no interest in selling insurance, I just have to take this class.
Since Monday, I've revisited many things I thought I had left behind permanently, all of which I hate. Some are more surprising than others, given my situation, but no less annoying.

1. I hate traffic. If I wanted to sit in traffic for upwards of an hour a day, I would live in Tigard and get to enjoy the tax benefits of living outside the greasy grip of the Portland City Council and the many other municipal thieves that comprise "Little Beirut." I suppose I'm spoiled that since I've moved to Portland I haven't worked more than a few minutes drive or bike trip from my place of employment, and I intend for that luck to last.

2. I hate cliques. Even among the thirty-three people in my class, and even though we've only been in session for four days, two completely separate "cliques" have formed and battled for turf more than once. The first is comprised of three younger, sassier, color-matched and dyed-of-hair miscreants with fires in their belly and seven children between them. Let's call this first group the "Cryps." The second contingent is one middle-aged, bespectacled women with equally dyed cioffs (but for entirely different reasons) constantly chattering up the successes of their progeny to people they won't ever see again after next Tuesday. At all times armed with extra-large decaf vanilla lattes from Starbucks and cell phones that apparently are unable to be silenced, they glare like monarchs over their their bifocals like demonic librarians. We'll call them the "Bloods."
The main point of disagreement between these rival gangs is the temperature in the class room, which I might add is in a 50 x 35 room in the rear of a strip mall. At any given point during the day, depending on who has the current upper hand in the ridiculous turf war, the temperature in the room will be somewhere between "meat locker" and "Turkish bath house." The most dramatic change always takes place over lunch because, while the classroom is empty, one enterprising member of either gang will steal into the room for the sole purpose of adjusting the thermostat, treating us to the mumbled complaints of the rival group for the rest of the day, or until they send one of their own to turn the tides while the class is out on the afternoon break.

3. I hate strip malls. This particualar aspect of capitalism had always been lost on me. They are unsightly blights on the landscape and always seem to house businesses that no one patronizes. This particular strip mall boasts a Curves (read: quasi-gym for the hopelessly obese interested only in parting with a monthly fee,) a sports bar I wouldn't partonize with someone else's money, and a department store full of slob-art and stuff even the Chinese won't manufacture, for fear of damaging their national reputation for export of quality goods.
Although, I am typing this as I sit in one of the best teriyaki places I've ever enjoyed, which, believe it or not, offers wi-fi connectivity.

4. I hate school. I always have. I often assumed that my current level of maturity and blistering intelligence would lend itself well to any academic pursuit, should I choose to return to school, but I still find myself zoning out, nearly falling out of my chair in sleep, and doodling stick figures dying horrible and imaginative deaths, much like I did in the geology class I took with Luke in college.

Not to mention that my mood is none improved by the fact that I'm tired, hung over, and sore from the night out I had with Luke and our old pal Doogs, and the subsequent fight I had with Slash from Guns and Roses, which left me with a gaping, beer bottle shaped hole in my skull.

This class sucks, it's boring and I want to go home. My only joys are teriyaki chicken and being able to get up and go to the bathroom whenever I want.

In any case, all you loyal fans of the work we do, here at OTR will just have to wait a few more days until I can get back in the saddle. For now, stop emailing me worried requests about my health and well-being and go read Useless and Pointless, he's done with class for now.