I believe in lifelong learning. I’ve been doing it all my life.
Long before arriving at Boise State for Spring Semester 2026, I attended Humboldt State University for one year, UC Santa Barbara for two years, dropped out for two and a half years, dropped back in at University of Arizona, Tucson, for one semester and a couple of summer sessions, transferred back to UC Santa Barbara and graduated with a BA with Honors in Political Science and Spanish two years after that, one month as a cashier at the Santa Barbara Food Coop, then back to University of Arizona, Tucson, for their new Masters in Spanish Literature program before calling it quits, in tears, after the first week.
I blame it on living on fruit and nuts for five years, and the resulting Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Or maybe I’m just unstable.
Now, forty years later, still suffering from Irritable Bowel Syndrome, but with additional complications, some of which are all in my head, I find myself back in school as a Narrative Arts auditor, and in desperate need of a job. Maybe not desperate enough.
I decided to attend the Idaho Tech Gems mixer, even though I didn’t really want to. I was already out, visiting the mailbox store to grab a package for my wife, Penny, who was at school with a broken foot and can’t pick up packages. I meant to bring in the flowers that her best friend Gretchen sent over. Gretchen even texted to let me know they were sitting on the porch, and I was just about to bring them in when I got distracted. I get distracted a lot, even when lives are at stake, in this case the lives of flowers left sitting out in the 95 degree heat.
Killing the flowers like that would bring down the combined hammer of wife and stand-in wife upon my innocent yet forgetful head. Nothing to do but stress about it when my actual wife texted a couple hours later, after the mixer, to let me know there were flowers on the porch, and could I bring them in before they died in the 95 degree heat. I was long gone from home by then and mere blocks from where I was to pick her up after school.
Wives aren’t always or even often like hammers. It’s a rare occurrence. So rare, you might think it’s unwise to even bring it up. Mostly, it happens when your mind takes leave of its senses, and in combination with your wife’s best friend, who think it’s her job to act as a stand-in, even when your wife is right there to do the hammering. I can see their point.
Penny reminded me the flowers would probably die in the heat, to which I agreed and offered to drive back home if she wanted me to. But by then it had already been long enough for them to die, so why bother?
Earlier, at the mixer, oblivious to the lurking danger of flowers, I was glad I forced myself to be there. My friend Robert, who I only know through mixers, said how much he enjoyed my videos, and that I should keep making them, because the LinkedIn algorithm has changed, and nobody’s doing videos any more, and mine are way different than anybody else’s, anyway.
After a while, I said goodbye to Robert so I could prospect for jobs and so he could prospect for beer, and I was talking to another guy who looked even older than me but turned out to be only 58. He asked me when was the last time I felt good, and I said 40 years ago. Then he told me about his triple bypass, which made me feel better, knowing I haven’t had one.
But I still don’t feel good. I think about dying a lot, mostly because it gives me hope that someday I’ll feel good again, even if I don’t feel anything at all. I’ll be sad if death turns out to be even worse than life, but there’s always that risk if the ghost of Hamlet’s father wasn’t just being dramatic. He never did reveal what would cause Hamlet’s hair to stand “like quills upon the fretful porpentine.”
I think about what would happen if I were to die on campus, and if my parking expired shortly after I did. Would I get a ticket, and would my wife have to pay the fine? Somehow, that seems unfair, especially considering the flowers on the porch wilting in the 95 degree heat. The ghost of Hamlet’s father had no way of anticipating any of these developments.
But that was yesterday, and I didn’t die, and neither did the flowers, which is a miracle in itself. The hammer remains poised to strike, as does murder most foul.
We don’t always die when we think we will, or how, and we often die when we think we won’t, and how. That’s why we should live every moment as if we’re trying to get away with whatever we can before God or the cops catch us doing it.
And if you go back to school, make sure to add enough time to the parking meter so your wife doesn’t end up holding the ticket.