Hyperbole, because all the cool kids are doing it.

One portion of my classes this quarter meets on Saturday mornings. This portion consists of approximately 75-1200 little children running around with miniature cellos, violins, and violas. There is usually a point where all 1500 children (and parents) gather and watch a music recital. At any given time, there is someone falling down the stairs, two meltdowns in progress, and 423 whispered conversations.

This is all a bit creepy to me for a variety of reasons. I also don't have children of my own, and considering most of the kids are under 10, I could take any one of them and pass them off as my own child very feasibly. Yesterday's creepiness had to do with a lack of seating for the 5000 or so people in the room.

So. I propped myself up against a table covered with other grad students (I prefer to travel in grad-student-clumps in case the miniature people get restless). I choose to lean against the table because wondering aloud how many grad students can one table support just sounds like the beginning of a disappointing joke.

Right. I leaned. And I suddenly felt a repeated butt tapping. I looked over and some little, little girl was climbing up on the table too. She was excited her teacher was on the table and wanted to sit by her. So I watched the recital, had my butt tapped, and was enjoying my leaning as much as I could without having any more coffee.

And then the little, little girl sneezed. Many visions went through my head. All of them involving the airspeed velocity of contagious children. Luckily, her dad took her outside to wipe her nose (ew!).

I don't have (and never had) any interest in being a teacher for small children. If I want strange children sneezing on me, I would have my own. If I had a time machine, I would go back to Disneyland and wrap that little boy who sneezed in my face in a HazMat suit and turn him over to the government, because I'm convinced he passed along most of the world's diseases to me with that single, disgusting sneeze.

I've also considered the possibility that he wasn't an actual little boy, but was merely a construction of cardboard and plastic used by his mad scientist father to pass along interesting concoctions of illnesses to those who walked by. I'm concerned that I've slept 15 hours in a row and feel a touch feverish, which is how I spent a lot of December. Possible relapses make for interesting conspiracy theories.

An Erinku (in a waking up haze):
my eyelid twitches
I assume it's
Morse Code for:
Stop. Coffee Time.