eruthros

... now updated!. Not as fun as the Mayor's proclamation regarding sundaes, but still amusing. Oh, Ithaca.

***

Ithaca in the summer is not the same as Ithaca in the winter. I mean, basically the people who are left are adults and hippies (obviously those two categories overlap) and ten undergrads. Recently, I have seen...

... a round-shouldered man named Rodney with extremely poor social skills. graycastle asked me, how did you know his name was Rodney? And I said, well, remember how I said, with extremely poor social skills? Yes. He walked up to me and immediately began asking me about my groceries. Did I like ginger beer? What was the best ginger beer? What was in my ginger beer? Was there anything bad for people in ginger beer? What if I made stirfry? What did I put in stirfry? What if I was having a party? Think Rodney McKay if he worked the prepared-foods section.

... Ithaca's (apparent) official Don't Get Heatstroke man. Me: walking from Gimme Coffee to downtown, hot day, a bit red-faced (stupid complexion). Middle-aged man approaches. "Hello!" he says. "Don't get heatsroke!" "... I won't," I say. "Excellent!" he says, pats me on the shoulder, and walks on by. I say "official" because he, or someone very like him, did the exact same thing to graycastle the week before.

... nine teenagers hanging out on the commons. Possibly buskers, possibly runaways, possibly just hangin' out. One of them had a guitar, and in front of the case he'd placed a sign: "Parents killed by ninjas. Need money to learn kungfu." As I walked past, he started to play "Kung Fu Fighting" on his guitar.

... a woman wearing a sarong in that "please god don't" way. You know, they wrap around twice, right? Not for this woman, oh no, she'd tied a loose slipknot on her hip and was nearly falling out of the sarong. I noticed her because she was stopped on the side of the street across from me, shouting at a woman in a car. Who I hope was a friend of hers, because what she was shouting was... "I have poison ivy on my crotch! CROTCH RASH! And on my ASS! I have poison ivy IN MY ASSHOLE!" I hope this was, you know, an oversharey answer to "how are you?" rather than just ... random oversharing.

1. Six guys wearing honest-to-god sandwich boards standing on the benches outside of the campus bookstore stumping for Jesus. All white men. The one doing most of the talking was waving a Bible around in the air and thrusting it towards passers-bye as he tried to make his points: "you have sinned," "how dare you have sex or attend courses that question religion," "Rapture Rapture Rapture," and "I'm sure wearing a sandwich board saying 'Jesus will save you from eternal suffering'' will convince you that you should leave your miniskirts for Jesus." Anyway, most students were studiously refusing to make eye contact or walked behind them to avoid having Bibles stuck in their faces. Except for one girl, who walked right up to Weird Preaching Man, looked him in the eye, and said "Dude, you know that shit won't work here, right?"

2. Boy on cellphone: "No, no, I'm in the library, and I'm not supposed to talk on my cell here, so you should talk quieter."

3. Girl, to reference librarian: "I emailed the librarian about help for my thesis two hours ago, and I haven't heard back yet, so I was wondering what was taking so long."

4. Girl in bookstore: "Is the New York Times free here?"
Bookstore clerk: "No?"
Girl: "Well, it should be. It's free in the library, you know."
Bookstore clerk, clearly trying to keep snarkiness in check: "I'm sorry, but it costs a dollar here."
*girl leaves without buying anything*
Bookstore clerk, to me, the instant she's out she's out of earshot: "Did you hear that? It's free in the library? That's because it's a library."

5. Boy in class: "Hey, where do you get your coffee?"
Girl sitting next to him: "I make it at home. Sometimes I buy some at the Olin Library Cafe."
Boy: "I can't go to that cafe. It's all those girls who want stupid fancy drinks with sugar and milk make the line take too long. I don't have time for that."
Girl: "Well..."
Boy: "Who wants latte, anyway? It's all a scam to put less coffee in your drink."
Girl, to friend: "Did you know people got so angry about this?"
Friend: "No. And what's wrong with milk?"
Boy, backpedaling: "Oh, I didn't mean you were, like, wasting my time with your drinks. But there's something wrong with all of that milk and sugar crap, and then saying you're drinking coffee."
Girl: "I'm drinking a latte right now."
Boy, backpedaling again: "Cool, if that's what you like, but it's such a girl thing, like you all just do it because everyone else does. And it makes the line too long."
Girl, to friend: "Do you want to take even longer at the counter next time?"
Friend: "It'll be hard to make my 'medium coffee' take more than ten seconds, but I'll try."