Look upon my angry face, ye mighty, and despair.

I should have let this go a couple hours ago, I know, but I can’t stop dwelling on it, so I’ll let it out. I’ll let it out here, where nobody listens or cares, instead of in a letter to the editor at the Bullet, where nobody listens or cares, or on Twitter, where nobody listens or cares. Because even though nobody listens or cares here either, I make the rules on this blog and you’re free to read and comment or go about your merry, rather than pretend to your friends that it didn’t happen.

Listen:

I went for a walk to the laundromat and the grocery store, since I have neither a car, nor a dryer, nor groceries. On my way back, I was walking along one of those streets that are parallel to College Ave – Stafford Ave, for those of you keeping score at home and checking Google Maps. After dodging traffic on Route 1, I figured I was more or less home free until some college girl in a monster white SUV goes barrelling through the stop sign not three feet from turning me, my laundry and my groceries into a nice splatter pattern. (Maybe this is hyperbole. There would have definitely been broken bones, damaged organs, that sort of thing.) Then  I noticed her window was open and I didn’t hear any music, so I shouted “HEY” to get her attention, but she kept rolling. That’s what she did wrong.

Here’s what I did wrong: just my luck, she lived two blocks down from the scene of the crime and was just getting out of the car as I was getting into screaming distance. So I opened up on her. “Did you just turn onto this street a couple blocks back? Yeah? Did you see me walking through that intersection? Did you see that you nearly ran me over?” In my defense, I uttered not a single profanity, called her not a single name (not even stupid). I was just loud. I haven’t gotten that loud since I was correcting PFCs and Lance Corporals. I was fully deflated and back to ignoring her before I was even within arm’s reach. She didn’t seem scared, exactly, but a little spooked. Maybe more shocked that this stranger was yelling at her, or – and here’s what I’m hoping – going over in her head the implications of maiming or killing another human being one week into the fall semester. She seemed to get the point. I was prepared to let it go at that, walk on home and tell my story to my roommate when her neighbors – or possibly roommates – told me that I didn’t need to yell at a student. (As if being a student excuses reckless behavior.) I told them I was a student too and flipped them off, ignoring everything else they said.

Most times when people nearly run me down (it happens a lot around here), I’m able to tap on their hood or smack the taillight as they drive off. I couldn’t do either this time, though I wanted to throw my keys at her SUV (even then I knew it would be a bad idea). So I did the next best thing. I admit it – I lost my temper. All those times idiots thoughtlessly, recklessly operating their 2-ton death machines nearly ran me over, and me with nothing to say about it but maybe a tap on the hood that they don’t notice (or get pissed about) and a snarky tweet – all my anger at all those times came bubbling up. But I posed no immediate threat, and when I was most able to do any kind of damage, I was already silent, over it and walking by. But I’ve decided that nearly being run over is not the worst part of this story. As I’ve said, this happens a lot around here. I’m used to it. The worst part is these girls deciding that my anger at nearly being run over was somehow irrational and trying to call me on it. No need to yell at a student? What kind of protected species is “student?” Did someone call the EPA when I left? Who do they think they are? And that’s a problem – a frustration – an anger – a rage that I’ve only ever expressed in person to a close friends:

These kids. These fucking kids. This girl did not buy that SUV for herself. It was too new, too big, too expensive for any undergraduate aged 18-22 to be able to afford on their own. These girls did not work jobs to pay all their bills and rent. If they worked at all, it was for beer money. More likely, some enterprising parents found that it’d be cheaper to stick them with a bunch of friends in a house (Mommy and Daddy only pay a fraction of the rent) and pay for groceries than it would be to pay Mary Washington’s ridiculously overpriced room and board fees. This coddling makes for the entitled little shits I see all over this campus, the kind that think that if they almost run you over, you have no reason to be angry. Whoops! I’m a student, tee-hee! I’m probably breaking some code by even bringing this up, but I stuck my neck out for thirteen months in a Middle Eastern shithole fighting Mr. Bush’s war just so I could go here. Mommy and Daddy weren’t paying my way, not no way, not no how. I knew I had to sweat it out or die trying. It’s impossible to tell that by looking at me, I know. And I’d hardly be one to ask for any respect for what I did. Five years later, I’m still on the fence between proud and revolted. It was a purely mercenary move and I’ll deal with my conscience for the rest of my life for it. You could say something about the state of American education, or something about the poor (though I was never poor), or whatever – something about how the only hope for a decent chance for anyone is a college education, and how that’s beyond the reach of so many of us who aren’t willing to die because we happened to turn 18 when there was an invasion on. Whatever. That’s not my concern. My concern here is the individuals who feel that just because you’ve been handed everything, you can continue to expect everything. That’s not how this world works. That’s not how this world will ever work, for the Utopians among you. If, miraculously, we could get everyone else to stop cheating and murdering each other, there’s still this planet that seems like she’s trying to purge herself of us. There’s still the cold, indifferent universe. So here’s what it’s come to:

In the beginning of Rushmore, Bill Murray’s character, Herman Blume, tells the boys who aren’t rich to take the rich boys down. There you go, boys and girls. No more sympathy.