I guess who does love when bad people win.
Other bad people maybe.
On Monday, my ecology class went on a field trip to a cemetery.
Not my idea of a fun or enjoyable field trip but I am just in pretend everything-is-normal mode.
Pretending that a cemetery is just another random place.
Pretending that I do not know Roger's ashes are lying under six feet of soil somewhere.
It was hard to bite my tongue as people talked about their experiences.
I just could not imagine sharing my story with these people.
They barely even know that I go by my middle name.
We took university buses over to the cemetery about thirty minutes from campus.
I sat near the front and took my motion-sickness meds.
No need to make this day any worse by throwing up.
Then there is this kid.
Sitting behind me.
He is probably twenty-two or so.
A know it all.
On the way over, he talked and talked and talked.
It was 8:30 in the morning.
And he would not shut up.
On the way back, a different kid sat next to him.
Obviously, the first guy was sick of all his chattering.
He starts to brag how he never pays tolls on the Orlando toll roads.
"Fools pay those things. The road is paid for. Why should I pay my money?"
He gave this guy about ten tricks to get away with not paying the tolls.
When I warned him about how they could suspend his license for that kind of thing, he gawked. "Only if I get caught."
His next topic: "How to get around the UCF financial system".
Now, I understand I am "lucky" and I do not have to worry too much about paying for my school and making ends meet.
But this kid was taking it to an extreme.
He talked about how he lied on the FAFSA.
How he just added a year to his birth date along with a few other things.
He started bragging about all the money the school gives him.
How he has not paid for a course ever and he actually gets paid to attend school - $3000 per semester.
He talked about how he milks the fact he was in the military for anything he can.
I kept biting my tongue.
I kept my hands to myself.
But it was hard.
I wanted to punch him.
I wanted to slap him.
I wanted to yell at him.
I hate when bad guys win.
And I know people say they will get what they deserve but I am not sure.
What if they don't?
What if good guys (people) really do finish last?
6 comments:
Just a slice of what I deal with at work. I hate when people try to get over. I think there's something to say for doing it yourself and getting personal satisfaction. It's so frustrating. I just have to believe that it eventually comes back to them.
It's no consolation at all, but I'm guessing part of the reason why the jerk pissed you off so much is because you're feeling so crummy and low right now. Grief ain't logical, and I know, for me, that when I'm really crumbling or wavering grief-wise, I become one cranky, cantankerous, overly critical, hypersensitive bitch. The stupidest things will piss me off...ones that I probably wouldn't have even noticed on the good or normal days. Which doesn't make it feel any better, of course, and I'm sorry you had to sit and listen to that asshole. It's so cosmically unfair that complete wastes of humanity get to live and continue thriving when good, decent husbands whom we loved and adored die needlessly. Sometimes, on bad days, I really hate the universe and pray that karma is a real thing.
Thinking of you and sending you hugs.... xoxo, Candice
And really?? What on earth does a cemetery have to do with ecology? Aren't there a dozen other places to go for a field trip??
Then again, as widows we'll have weird sensitivity radars that so-called normal people will never have. To them, a cemetery is no different from a park, I suppose. But to those of us in the know...so, so different. I'm sorry you had to deal with that....
Thinking of you!
I'm guessing he's full of crap. It's been my experience that people who brag like that are pathological liars. If he was really milking the system THAT much, I'm sure he'd be more quiet about it. Unless he's just stupid, which may be the case. But usually guys like that are blowing their own horn because they like to hear themselves talk... and they are almost always just full of crap...
And if he's not full of crap, his cheating will catch up to him eventually. After all this bragging, someone might check up on him and find how much he's stealing...
I'm with you. We went out with friends recently, and they paid for their meal in red £50 notes. And the thing is, we never use £50 notes in this country. You can't get them from a cash machine -- only from the bank.
So why did they have them? Because they'd done some consultancy work, and got paid in cash == no taxes to pay.
Just a thick stash of red giveaway notes to burn through.
Now it's nothing to do with me, but the hospitals really need the money. The schools need the money. Our aid programme for Haiti needs the money.
And it's all paid out of taxes. So if they don't pay theirs, someone loses out.
'Got paid in cash, did we?' I joked. And perhaps she didn't think it was such a clean win, after all.
Spirits up, and best wishes from London.
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