‘Dinging on my thingy’: Things I overheard this week

Rockford College University, 2 May 2015

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“I found it on the floor,” said student as she returned from a trip to the bathroom with a cupcake in hand. As others teased her, she said, “it was a chocolate frickin’ cupcake,” to which classmate added, “of sh*t!”

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“Nice job last night,” said an old man I didn’t know as he was walking behind me at Wal-Mart on Tuesday April 28th. Then he said, “You didn’t hear me, did you?” and again he said, “Nice job last night.” I said I was at home last night, washing dishes. He apologized, as he’d confused me for someone else. I said, “I don’t mind being complimented on my dishes.”

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One sophomore boy to another, after the latter had said “chupacabra” in some comment to the class: “Yay — chupacabra!” and fist-bumped the latter student. I said I needed to write that down on my pocket-page where I collected quotes. A girl said, “it becomes funnier when you say you have to write it down.”

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That same girl later said to her friend and classmate, who was confused about an assignment, “See, I told you you were stupid.”

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Ant hills

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“THAT’S why you don’t ride horses bareback when they’re in heat,” said student, explaining why she had scrapes and bruises on her face and arms.

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“Are you on some good pain meds?” I asked a student who had just come back to school after having open-knee surgery. She laughed and said, “Heheehee, yeah.”

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Outside Colman Library, Rockford College University, 3 May 2015

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“How long does it take a person to see there’s nothing!?!” I heard myself say of a driver who was durably stopped at a four-way stop sign. I was just complaining about a fellow human’s judgment, but then I realized that line could also be a philosophically significant point about ideas being nothing at all.

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“Would that be grammarly correct?” a student asked of a particular phrase on April 29. He did later correct himself with “grammatically.”

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“If anyone cares, my heels are bleeding,” announced student to me and her 10th hour classmates.

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That same girl, the next day, said about using public toilets: “You gotta hover! You gotta hover!”

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“They spelled all of my names wrong,” said a girl with three names of a local-newspaper article in which she was wrongly named.

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At Kishwaukee College, 28 March 2015

“I don’t care; it’s mine,” said a senior boy after his friend pointed out flaws in the model airplane the boy had just purchased for two dollars from a teacher who’s leaving at the end of the semester.

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“One day it’s like, ‘huh-huh, huh-huh’; the other, it’s ‘heh-heh, heh-heh,” said a senior girl describing another girl’s changing laugh.

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“But he’s still alive, you know,” said the woman teaching the graduate-level education class I took last weekend, of her husband buying heart medicine in Mexico over her objections.

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Rock River beach at Byron, IL, 25 March 2015

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Junior student said if she would start to plan a murder, she’d “just give up because it’s too much work. I’m serious, honestly,” she said.

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Student said of her classmate, “She’s like a teddy bear.” “I am,” said second student. “No, you’re not — you’re a bitch,” said first student.

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“A word is a thing on the move, a word is a process,” said linguist John McWhorter on NPR’s All Things Considered.

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At high school baseball games on April 30th, one woman yelled at a boy who was pitching: “C’mon, Taylor, put it in there,” and after he threw a called strike, she said something like “Right there” or maybe “There it is.” A different woman at a nearby game said of the team she supported, “We’re getting ’em out there; we’re just leavin’ ’em out there.”

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The sine function incarnate, sort of.

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“You live to serve,” a young-ish man at the seminar said to his 50-something female colleague, as he asked her to get him something. “Why can’t YOU live to serve?” she replied. “I’m only 37,” he said.

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Later on, that same woman said of cultural sensitivity, that teachers are not supposed to ignore cultural differences but celebrate them. “You’re supposed to go with a guy and do hookah,” she gave as an example. I wrote this down and read it back to her and she at first denied that she had said it, but then, “No, I DID say that, didn’t I?” she admitted.

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“I can’t afford an Ess-You-Vee, but THEY’VE got ’em,” said a middle-aged female teacher, comparing her material wealth to those who claim to be poor.

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“That was you dinging on my thingy just now,” said a teacher colleague of mine after I had sent her an email that caused an audible alert on her computer.

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Ice, Ogle County, 5 March 2015

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“Don’t f__king look at my veins,” said a student who told us she was denied the ability to donate blood because her veins were too small, or something.

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“Um-um-um-um-um, can I teach?” asked a student in my 10th hour class, a question she’s asked on about 20 prior days. I’ve said “no” every time before saying “yes” today, and she did a decent job leading our class through reading part of Book 13 of The Odyssey and then supervising essay-writing time.

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“Too bad you’re gonna go back to her, just like you always do,” said one senior boy to another in the parking lot after school on 4 May.

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I was getting slap-happy tired when I took this picture, but something about there being anything “upcoming” about classics struck me as funny.