You Scratch My Dick and I’ll Scratch Yours
scrappybadger May 8th, 2007
If I were a rhetorician, I’d have had a field day a couple of weekends ago. Piig works in the Art Department at the university where I teach. At the end of every year someone holds a party and invites her entire department, and almost every year we go. This year the location was an unfortunate one — a tiny backyard that was full of wildflowers and bushes. It’s a lovely yard, but not one conducive to a party with 20 or 30 people. The setup made it difficult to talk to everyone, but that didn’t matter much anyway since the hostess and the wife of one of the faculty members were the only ones to make any effort to talk to us. No one else really acknowledged our existence or even bothered to turn around, so Piig and I admired the flowers and talked to one another for the most part.
The elitist behavior of a bunch of too-cool-for-youers who don’t have time to talk to an administrator and her partner was annoying, but it couldn’t even compare to the one conversation we were somewhat involved in. We were near the entrance to the backyard, and in order to talk to a new arrival, one of the professors ended up in a brief exchange with us. It was mostly just chit chat, but after a minute and a half or so he completely shut us out. The four of us — Piig, myself, the new guy, and the asshole Art instructor — were all still standing in a circle as if we were talking like normal people but aAi suffered from sudden hearing loss. It was either that or Piig and I started talking in dog whistles or something. He refused to look at us or hear us, and before long the other guy took his cue. Then, to top that bullshit off, the other guy started making sexist jokes! It went something like this:
aAi: “blah, blah, I’m so cool, and this is why”
Piig: “dog whistle, dog whistle”
aAi: “We couldn’t host the party because my wife was studying for her comps, and the house is a wreck.”
sB: Thinking to self: yeah, and you couldn’t get off your lazy ass and clean it.
other guy: “What’s she studying?”
aAi: “Oh, I don’t know. She’s told me a million times, but I can never remember.”
Piig: “dog whistle, dog whistle”
sB: Thinking to self: You’re a dick, a big, major, lazy dick. Your wife should’ve been born a lesbian.
other guy: “Ha, ha, ha. Yeah, you just come home and say ‘What’s for dinner?’” Thinking to self: and then you do her!
sB: Thinking to self: Did I fucking hear that shit right? Am I in the goddamned Twilight Zone again? Can I punch them both in the nuts and get away without falling over all these plants?
Piig: “Dog whistle, dog whistle. Dog whistle, DOG WHISTLE!”
aAi: “Yeah! Hahaha!”
Piig to sB: “Let’s go.”
sB: “Seriously.”
Piig: Thinking to self: Sheesh, I’m glad she speaks Dog Whistle.
Assholes.
OMG I’m glad I found you (again). This SO reminds me of a conversation I overheard in one of my classes recently–I think the guy student was trying to pick up the female student, but somehow the issue of him having a girlfriend came up and he was all, yeah, she’s studying something to do with land use out in Estancia but I can never remember what. I never listen to her anyway. And I’m like, dude, do you think this makes you seem like a good catch? I was halfway tempted to post something on my blog like ATTENTION female PHD candidate at [major north american university] who is working on land use in Estancia NM, your boyfriend who is taking classes at [school] only pretends to listen when you talk about your life’s work!
Crap. Glad you’re back though. (via feh-muh-nist)