For the past few days, a disconnected phrase has been running through my head that makes me giggle and I feel like I should share it cause I’m no longer connected to the people who were privy to it originally so the phrase itself carries very little meaning simply spoken aloud without context.
When I was in college, there was a group of friends that I’d hang around with and we frequented a small area of the campus called the hub. Ok, not very original I know but that’s not really the story so pay attention. Among this group of friends was a guy named Kurt who was appropriately nicknamed biscuithead. I don’t really know the origins of the nickname necessarily, but it fit and I’m sure you can imagine a rather unfortunate fellow who has unfortunate things happen to him on a regular basis with this kind of nickname.
There was also another group of people who would hang together that were essentially the purest and most perfect examples of misfits. One was a rather portly dude who didn’t really care much for personal hygiene, a blind girl who always dressed in pink sweaters, a few other nondescript people and a really short girl who I swear had a club foot but it was a long time ago so I might be wrong about that. This story centers around that girl.
One day, a presumably normal day for poor biscuithead, he was on his way somewhere in a hurry and being himself was running and not really paying attention to his surroundings. As it was relayed by him, he rushed around a blind corner near a stairwell and happened upon the previously mentioned, most decidedly vertically challenged girl. And he happened upon her in a way that met with a decent amount of force that would knock any normally sized person to the ground.
The description of the collision could probably be described in greater detail but since I wasn’t there I’ll save you the probably imaginary details—let’s just say that books, papers and tiny people were flying in a way they weren’t meant to. What happened after was the thing that brings us here and eventually to the phrase that stuck with a few people for the rest of their college career together. As poor biscuithead and the short girl (for lack of a better name) attempted to deal with this sad accident, there was a flurry of “I’m SO SORRYs” and a lot of silence. As he helped he pick up what appeared to be her entire weight in books, papers and pencils it just got more uncomfortable and more silent, right up until the end as she had everything in order and turned to walk away, only to turn back and look him right in the eye and say, ” I have to go to math.”
Now, was that phrase necessary of this wordy explanation? Not at all, since it wasn’t what she said but how she said it that stuck with us and became the trigger for much laughter in the next couple years. Imagine the girl I previously described very pointedly saying that particular phrase like Gollum from Lord of the rings. It was the kind of thing to catch someone off his guard enough to flip from panicked embarrassment to insane giggling all the way back to relay the entire incident to his group of friends.
Now don’t you feel special?