Random thoughts of a working man (sort of...)

Thought #1:

I was looking at some pictures on FaceBook and I saw some pictures for a Colored Student Conference. I got to thinking, "These groups are interesting..." I do believe in equal rights, minority representation, and all that, but the one thing I don't understand is how few "white" people there are in these groups. The last time I checked, white was a color too.

Scientifically speaking, white is the color that encompasses all colors. The color white is produced when all the colors of the spectrum go unreflected through the atmosphere and then reflect off of a surface into our eyes. Scientifically speaking, white is the most colorful color. Racially speaking, white is devoid of color. Somehow in the spectrum of things, white people in a "white-person's world" somehow lack color when other ethnic minorities have their own color. Now I'm not saying that ethnic minorities don't deserve some special recognition in the "white-person's world," but I'm just saying that the focus of these groups are to attract students of ethnic minorities while basically saying, "If you're white you can join if you want, but you're not our target audience." This brings that question, "When was white considered a non-color?" And speaking of that, "white" people were predjudiced when they came to America during the Industrial Revolution. Anybody who wasn't a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (known henceforth as WASPs) was persecuted by those who were. We have months, special festivals, and all of these sorts of things for "colored" minority groups while no special event (to my knowledge) is given to the people who came over to America and faced this kind of persecution. Now, I'm all for the special events dedicated to "colored" history (I love learning about other cultures), but I don't understand why they can't simply make a national culture month which takes into account all races, all religions, all ethnicities, and whatnot, and explain their contribution to our multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-colored nation?

We students have enough problems not mobilizing politically and getting raped by older generations, looking at college tuitions going up, student services being cut, aide for education going down, social security disappearing, wars being fought in our name without our consent, and so much more that we don't need to focus on a "colored" student conference. Let's just have a Student Conference where anybody of any color can come in and speak for the collective good of everyone.

Thought #2:

Ordering sandwiches can be fun and aggrivating. The two big sandwich places I go to for lunch (other than home) are Subway and Toni's Catering & Deli. Now when I go to Toni's there's a couple of sandwiches that I choose from, although I swear I'm going to try new ones all the time, and depending on who I get as the sandwich maker depends on my experience. There are 4 people there who make the sandwiches on a regular basis and 2 are more pleasant while the other 2 are less pleasant. It has nothing to do with their personality, mind you, but the fact that 2 ask what you want on the sandwich and the other 2 assume what you want on the sandwich. The two who make assumptions usually frustrate me because there is a pretty high counter blocking the view of the sandwich-making process and I can't tell what they're doing, or what they're putting on the sandwich.

One time I ordered a French Dip, which I expected to be a roll with roast beef that contained a side of aus jus that I could dip the thing in (like Arby's does). When I opened the sandwich up after receiving it, I saw a roll, with roast beef, like expected, but then there were these two white, dairy-like products sitting between the bread and the beef. One of the two dairy-like products could only be identified by several experts (namely my ex-co-worker Amanda and myself) as Swiss Cheese. The other dairy-like substance was identified by the same experts as "something resembling mayonaisse." Regardless, in my opinion mayonaisse should never be allowed to come within a nauticle mile of aus jus. I decided I would be brave and after removing the cheese I attempted to eat the sandwich with the mayonaisse-ish substance with the aus jus. The result was extreme nausea. After finishing most of one half of the sandwich, I had to scrape the gunk off of the other half. But the moral of this paragraph is that when I order sandwiches at Tony's Catering & Deli, I have to think of what I want to order BEFOREHAND, which is something I hate doing. I like deciding what I want to eat after browsing the menu for an hour and then finally making a decision, much to the delight of the people standing in the line behind me, hoping I make a decision before their lunch hour is up.

The other two people always ask if I want the cheese, if I want the condiments put on the sandwich, and ask me if I want any additional items on the sandwich. Kind of like the questions you'd ask yourself when making a sandwich, which is what going to a sandwich shop should be like. I like their sandwiches a lot more. But I think that's largely due to the lack of a gag reflex when attempting to digest the white menace the other 2 put on the sandwich.

With Subway, it's always an adventure. I like my sandwiches with all of the vegetables. Although 99% of the time I order a meatball sub, it's always fun to try and watch the sandwich person try to wrap up the sandwich I make. The last time I ordered a sandwich from Subway, the first guy who tried to wrap my sub ended up ceading his position to another sandwich maker and took his spot. It took the other sandwich maker about a minute to clumsily wrap up the sandwich (and I think he did it mostly because there was a huge line behind me). I had to smile when that was going on. It gives me pride when my sandwiches give other people grief.

Thought #3

Dave Barry is hilarious. If you haven't read any of his newspaper articles or read any of his books (which are mostly his newspaper articles), then go read his stuff. It's side-splitting comedy. It'll be the most fun you've had in about a day, which would really depend on the day. But his stuff gets me laughing so hard that I start crying. It's that good. And while I'm a person who will laugh at just about anything, I have to say his stuff really gets the giggle glands going.