*This ties in with the post I was not overreacting
My
Dickman Experience: Or Lack Thereof
On Friday, I had the chance to attend
a poetry reading on campus. My English instructor bribed us non-poetry loving
students with the promise of replacing our lowest quiz grade with a perfect
score if we attended to reading and wrote a summary. My lowest score is 8 out
of 10, which is no big deal. Normally.
Since I am less than one point away
from an A in the class, and since I can’t pass up the chance to get extra
credit and especially since it kills
me to grade anything less than an A in any class, I knew I would have to suck
it up and attend the reading in order to get those two points and therefore
improve my grade.
A moment. I am not a fan of poetry.
In fact, one might describe me as a person who would rather listen to techno
while watching bad 80s films in a room full of molting birds (allergies!) than to
be force-read poetry. I mean no disrespect to the poets themselves by any
means. I just do not enjoy the stuff. I’ve tried to like it. I’ve taken a
poetry class and I’ve attended readings in coffee shops. Poetry and I were just
never meant to be.
However, moving up a letter grade was
more important to me than my brain function (that made sense before I wrote it
down) so I made plans to attend.
I had my youngest daughter with me
that morning, and with promises of lollipops and a trip to the library in
exchange for her absolute silence, we slid through the doors to the PUB room about
forty-five minutes into the reading. I realize how rude it was to show up late
to something like that, but my Friday mornings are usually crammed full of
appointments and errands and I just wasn’t able to make it on time.
I guess it was also a little rude to
prematurely remove my hand from the door, letting it smack shut and send the
sound of my tardiness echoing through the room. My face burned with
embarrassment as I tiptoed over to a spot near the wall, found a seat and
pulled my daughter onto my lap. I smiled apologetically at the students who
were looking at me (fans of poetry do, apparently, exist because there were several
giving me the death-stare for disturbing their moment) and fixed my attention
on the man standing at the front of the room in front of a microphone. He
looked to be not much older than myself, wore glasses and had hair that hung in
his eyes. I surprised myself by thinking Wow.
A real poet. And then Okay, self.
That’s a pretty juvenile assessment. Glad to know we haven’t matured past fifth
grade.
I shook my head in an effort to
refocus my attention, which was a mistake because at that same moment my
daughter flipped her long hair over her shoulder and our heads collided with a
loud crack that was most likely heard
by the people outside the building. I blinked away tears as I hugged my
daughter close, praying that she wouldn’t start screaming in agony and shouting
blame. As luck would have it, my daughter has super hero strength and all she
did was look back at me and raise her eyebrows. I aimed a pained smile her way
just as a man from the back of the room spoke up. He announced that he was
sorry to interrupt, but that students needed to be released in order to get to
their next class on time. I looked up at the clock. It was 10:45am. The reading
was scheduled to last until 11:30am. Dude was being cut off forty-five minutes
early. NOT GOOD. I had only just arrived. I hadn’t even heard the poet speak
and he was already being dismissed. I had a summary to write!
I watched helplessly as students
clapped and then got to their feet, exiting through the same door I had just
entered moments ago. The man who had made the initial announcement called out
that the coffee was finally ready and that there were refreshments available. Some
people laughed. My daughter’s body went rigid, then she turned to me with pure
hope in her eyes. I knew what she was thinking. I shook my head, reminding her
that we were going to the library afterward. I remained seated as I frantically
tried to come up with some way of saving the assignment. I thought about waiting
my turn to speak with Mr. Dickman and politely asking him which poems he had
read so I could go home and look them up on the internet but decided against it
because for all I know he witnessed the entire entry/disturbing fellow
students/head smacking debacle and would be offended that not only could I not
be bothered to show up on time, but that I was a klutz and also kind of an
idiot. I then entertained the idea of posing as a reporter for the school
newspaper, but decided against that because even when I was on staff for my other
college newspaper fifteen years prior, posing questions to a complete stranger
always made me want to vomit. But then hey, so does poetry so at least there’s
a theme. My last thought involved following Mr. Dickman out to his car and
waiting until no one was around before tapping him on the shoulder and
pretending I recognized him as a famous poet in a random parking lot, but then
I realized I hadn’t yet read any of his poetry and suppose Mr. Dickman asked
which of his poems I favored? I am a terrible liar. My face gets red and I
start to sweat. I’m unable to form sentences and I start to bite my lip a lot.
Mr. Dickman could mistake my behavior for a stroke and call 911 and then I
would have to pretend it was true because whenever I do lie (and believe me, it
is almost never) I can’t stop and I
get carried along with whatever situation has been set into effect. Even if I
was able to stop him from dialing 911 and explain that I was lying, I think Mr.
Dickman would develop an opinion of our college that would not be favorable.
I realized that there was not much I
could do about missing the reading without being completely rude to Mr.
Dickman. I also did not want to be perceived as an
obnoxious, vomiting liar.
I set my
daughter on her feet and stood up. I gave Mr. Dickman one last glance, knowing
that he may never know how close he came to pure awkwardness and a possible
police report.
We slipped out
the door and disappeared into the crowd.
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