Monday, June 7, 2004

One early spring morning, after all the groggy students had settled into their one-piece desks, my high school Comparative Politics teacher surveyed the room, gave his 1.5-liter Dannon water bottle a preemptive tug, and launched into the deplorable state of modern living. He mused about how we’ve strayed from the “hunting and gathering” lifestyle, an outdated mode of existence we apparently yearn for despite our modernity.

Most women, for instance, have a compulsion for shopping, proof positive that gathering has endured through the ages. Men, on the other hand, are often compelled to run outside and kill things. He took another swig of spring water, and then his hands began pointing here and there. Indeed, he said, we shouldn’t be cooped up in a classroom so early in the morning, sentenced to a string of sedentary 41-minute chunks. Instead we should gallop freely across the open fields, taking in the fresh air while we hunt and gather, as hunters and gatherers are wont to do.

He sighed, perhaps in resignation, and took another gulp of water before starting the lesson proper. I thought briefly about galloping across the decidedly suburban Long Island landscape, but then I realized I was far more enamored with how his speech shaved five minutes off class. Five years later, as I sit here on a similar spring morning, I’ve come to another, far more awful realization: rather than hunting or gathering, I’ve been dispensing for the past year. Dispensing what? How about fackin’ pop-ups, gentle reader?

Maybe, just maybe it’s time to move, if not literally than at least figuratively. Making like a horse down I-94 probably isn’t the most practical solution, but I’m definitely looking for greener pastures.