May 14, 2005:
Today is another computer literacy day, I thought. I was excited. Betsy was my new crush: a portly redhead with freckles and an ass that don't quit...so to speak. It was really, really big, and lumpy, but why would I care about the superficial anymore? I just want a person to grip onto, no matter how much person there is to grip...
I spent ten minutes getting ready, no time for shower or teeth brushing. Then i spent fourteen minutes and thirty-seven seconds on the bus. I had made a habit of timing my bus rides. It was exhilarating to estimate how long it would take and then finally finding out after such a long wait (this time, 14:37). That's enough excitement for one afternoon, I thought, I don't want to overdo it, I had a habit of overdoing it. So I began thinking of Betsy and what mu-mu she would be wearing today. I had basically memorized the cut and appearance of every piece of clothing she had up to this point (Exactly five mu-mus, two pairs of pants [I believe waist size 48, but that's an approximation], and two loose white shirts with a stylish ruffle of fabric down the middle: exactly a weeks worth of clothing). Her clothes cycle changed throughout the week, but in a formulaic pattern that I had also memorized.
I came to the door of the classroom with a smile on my face. I couldn't wait to see if she would be wearing the outfit I had expected and was betting on. I had been right about it eight classes in a row now and it has been ten classes since i have come to understand her shifting weekly pattern.
Yet to my great misfortune, upon opening the door to class, sixteen students sat in their seats but the seventeenth was missing: Betsy. I slammed the door in horror, began hyperventilating, and broke into a cold sweat. I then ran home thinking only of how I would never know what Betsy wore. Would her absence result in a gap in her weekly pattern of outfits? I knew she must have been just as distraught about this inconsistency as me. Betsy and I shared similar minds. The trip home took exactly thirty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds.