This should entertain you. Years ago, I was a student at ITT Technical College in Salt Lake City, working on a degree in Computer-Aided Design. Technical Schools tend to attract quite a variety of people. Enter Exhibit A: Completely and proudly clad in the polyester uniform of McDonalds, strides in a short, awkward red-haired guy with thick glasses and a bad case of acne. I'm a people watcher, and so when people notice me watching, I will nod my head in a sort of greeting. Mr. McDonalds took this as an invitation to sit down at my table in the break room. I was probably the only one there, and there were surely a dozen or more empty tables that would have been just as suitable for him, but Burger Man was looking for a target.
"Wanna see my artwork?" He asks, in a voice surprisingly deep for someone who still looks like he's 14.
"Um, sure" I reply, having no idea what I'm getting myself into.
He removes a folder from his backpack, but not before suspiciously looking around to make sure that no one was watching. "Hmmm..." I thought, "he must have the secret plans to the Death Star in there..." He opens the folder, and pulls out a few sheets of lined paper and passes them over to me. I looked at them.
I'm not sure what what sound a red flag makes when it pops up, but there were dozens popping up all at once. They were saying things like "Back away slowly" and "Feign death...he might leave you alone" and such things. If he had drawn diagrams of home-made explosives, or a route into a local bank vault, I would have felt more comfortable. If he had drawn nude women or big, horned satanic creatures, I would have felt more at ease. Staring back at me were comic book style drawings of star fighters, asteroids and aliens. Complete with dashed-line laser beams. I thought maybe he had stolen them from a nine-year old.
"Erm...., uh....." I grunted.
"It's called Space Wolf!" He said, in his oddly deep and acoustic voice.
"Er, yes... so it seems" I replied, weakly. I felt like the fat sheep with a broken leg, watching the wolf pack close in on me.
I examined the drawings a little closer, my mind flashing back to when I drew Star Wars pictures in the third grade, or pictures of Battlestars blowing the hell out of a planet. Third Grade, yes! Technical School? How old is this guy?! And then, as if reading the comics weren't horrid enough, he had to narrate them. Complete with sound effects. And now, people were starting to appear, their attention drawn inexplicably towards me and Mr. Space Burgers as he made laser blast sounds and explosions (I did mention how acoustic his voice was, didn't I?). I looked around in desperation for help. There were plenty of sniggering smiles, mocking my pain, and a few expressions of pained sympathy.
"So, you're interested in space?" I queried, ignoring the fact that my table had now become a stage with several glaring, hot spotlights focused on it.
"Yeah, that's why I'm here!" He replied. Several of those little red flags now had question marks on them...big ones.
"Here...at a technical school?" I asked. "You're an electronics student, aren't you?"
"Well yeah," he replied, "that's how I'm going to get into space!" More flags with question marks.
"Wouldn't it have been a bit more - I don't know - productive to go into a field like, say Astrophysics? Or become a test pilot?" I asked. He looked a little deflated, and slightly defensive now.
"Well they need electronics technicians on the space shuttle..." he replied.
"Actually, they need astronauts on the space shuttle. Really, I think you ought to contact NASA and ask them what kind of career path will land you in space."
And then there was Jenny - God bless Jenny. Having been raised in a rural town, she had a no-nonsense attitude of "Git er done". She marched over and pulled me from my misery. "Nilo, I need your help in the computer lab! I've got this blue screen on the computer...something about 'Fatal Application Error'" She said, with a twinkle in her eye. And then I was gone, having learned my lesson about watching people, or at least making eye contact with them.
Epilogue:
Hopefully I helped this guy make a course correction in his career path, as the tuition costs for the two year electronics program were about $18,000 at the time. I did feel a bit sorry for him, though. A 9 year old caught in an 18 year old body. He really didn't seem to fit in, and I can only hope that he's since matured, or that the mother ship showed up and took him home.
(On to Part 2)
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