The art of escaping a church building isn’t particularly well documented. It’s a feat dulled by routine, a once elegant act of departure made pliant, no doubt, by centuries of censorial pressure, and so I thought I’d commit to Internet paper tonight the steps I take to leave places of worship. It all begins outside, on the pavement.
You have to realize it’s not just you who’s congregating. Your car is also gathered with other vehicles outside, all pew-like and probably just as drowsy as you are, and it’s critical you’re situated near the correct parking lot exit. Ideally you’ll only need to make right turns to hit the main road. You’ll also want to avoid three- and four-way intersections, because most people are hella polite immediately after a service, when even normally douchebaggy motorists become uncannily patient and gracious.
As far as where to park yourself inside the sanctuary, good ol’ classroom rules apply, especially if nodding off–and caring about nodding off–is your thing. Think of the hot zone, or the area that draws the most visual contact from center stage, as a sideways “8,” about two to three rows thick in the front and back, thinner on the sides, which places your ideal spot somewhere closer to the rear, two seats in from the side.
I was going to mention what exactly you should do with any smoke grenades or pulleys you may possess, but that’s more pertinent to leaving early. Like, during the sermon, right between points one and two. What we’ve discussed is the basic plan and, come Thursday, I’ll tell you how it was slightly derailed this past Sunday.
It’s insidious, really, the way formal education slyly asserts itself in my mind as something to be desired, despite all the protests I’ve lodged against it. Even my old man’s PhD, replete with all his dire warnings to never pursue one myself, boasts a certain mystique. I’ve been thinking about additional schooling recently, brainpan brimming with different scenarios, and when I stilled myself, let the pieces settle, it was clear I was addressing two simple questions: why I would want another degree and what precisely it would bear.
I don’t like school. Nostalgia’s supposed to equip me with rose-tinted shades, I guess, but when I think back to undergrad, specifically the framework of undergrad, I’m left instead with a rose-tinted magnifying glass. I remember asking a professor, one scholarly afternoon, why we couldn’t simply summarize the key ideas of the class curriculum and then, you know, move onward to parts unknown. She scoffed, chuckling as she told me that wasn’t how things worked. Previously I had viewed the ivory tower as a collective endeavor, an engine to further the body of knowledge.
Too idealistic, apparently. Now it strikes me as something entirely different, with the sundry pieces–from tenure to donation solicitations to eye-gouging book buyback prices–clicking eerily into place to reveal a fiendish enterprise built upon never-ending attempts at answering and re-answering unanswerable questions.
Perhaps I’m overextending myself here. Obviously that breakthrough cure or that revolutionary new invention will likely come from the tower, but beyond the more tangible output, what exactly is there? For an MBA, I learned today, connections and business skills, though I’m convinced I can procure those through alternate channels. All that’s truly left, then, is the pedigree, and with it the potential for a fatter paycheck. And when it comes down to this, ponying up $100k for the promise of future returns treads a fine wire between wise investment and the beginnings of a Ponzi scheme.
An amendment, if I may, to my earlier portrayal of dog shelters, where I basically likened them to prisons. Certainly there are parallels insofar as both have inmates, long rows of cells, and ample fencing. But the gen pop in the kennels is, by and large, truly innocent. They honestly didn’t do it. They were simply in the wrong place, wrong time, and were it not for an ill turn of fortune, matters would’ve been different, better, with a real home in the picture. Really, then, the shelter is more like an orphanage. With cages. Another amendment may be forthcoming. Be on the lookout.
Two weekends ago, on a Saturday morning at an ungodly hour, I visited the local Humane Society and left empty-handed, resolved that I would do this thing right. I was far from disappointed, though: 90 solid minutes were clocked into the shelter, pre-approval for adoption was in the bag, and I had resisted any impulsive decisions. Every kennel had been canvassed, a short list devised, narrowed down with input from the staff, and then they trotted out the recommended dog. We just didn’t click.
I wasn’t going to force it because, as much as I may seem to be planning this whole endeavor, that first step will still ride on what my gut tells me. The planning is for the road thereafter. I’m trying to strike a balance between the intuitive and the deliberate. I’ll be going again this weekend. Clean slate, no expectations on the one hand, and on the other hand, a realization that choosing a dog would be a decade-long commitment, if not longer. She’s got to be property vetted. You see what I did there.