In N' Out

When the clock strikes noon at General Mills, the employees disappear faster than Winona Rider with an armful of stolen purses. It's as if a fire alarm is sounded throughout the factory and even the conveyor belts sense that operations will have to be put on hold for a time while personal mastication needs are satisfied. We become Maslow's ants and focus on our hunger needs to the exclusion of our financial ones.

I am more than a little proud to say that I am no different. Lunchtime is an almost sacred rite and bringing face to food, while always a priority, becomes an obsession at twelve noon.

One particular lunch break in the not too distant past, I was hungry but distracted as I ran over an old woman who works in the factory office on my way out the door. That morning, I had been thinking about my diet and wondering if regular visits to In n' Out Burger constituted good eating. I had frequented that fine burger establishment every one of the last three days and, while the thought of an Animal-Style Double-Double with a Flying Dutchman chaser was appetizing, I figured I owed my body better.

I wanted something healthy, something green, so I hopped into my car and sped down my town's main thoroughfare, scanning restaurant titles for the anti-burger.

As I drove, I pensed. Without the steady blare of General Mill's quality control operations to plague my thinking, my thoughts were actually fairly lucid. I thought about the elderly woman I had run over and the merits of spending hours a day in a smelly cereal factory. I considered the recent Cabinent shakeup in Japan and then, tired of thinking, I tuned into VH1 and relaxed to the gentle thump-thump of the latest pop hit.

Before I knew it, I was at a restaurant. I stepped out of my car and walked forward, my mind still thump-thumping. Then, just as I was about to step through the doors of the establishment and into the air conditioned comfort of modern dining, I glanced at the name of the restaurant: In N' Out Burger.

I couldn't believe it. The car had practically driven me here of its own accord. I had made no conscious decision to come here - in fact my thoughts were about health and alternatives the whole time - but here I was nonetheless.

At first I was mildly upset that fate and destiny had denied me the opportunity to have a healthy meal, but I wasn't about to let fate ruin a good time.

I went to the counter and ordered a 4x4 burger, fries, a Flying Dutchman, diet coke and, after the main course, a vanilla shake (see right, click for enlarged image). I wasn't especially hungry, but In N' Out has a way of making room for itself.

My food came quickly and smelled of rich salts and heavy fats. I found a place to sit and thanked God quickly for his providence and direction. Then I lit into the food, enjoying each bite as an original delicacy, despite the fact that this was my fourth time this week eating from the limited In N' Out menu.

I was just stuffing the last bites of the 4 x 4 into my mouth and beginning to eye the lightly crisped fries when a the violent tones of a car alarm cut the air. Everyone in the restaurant heard the noise and the gentleman sitting to my immediate left made a cynical comment about modern gadgetry.

Everyone expected the alarm to subside quickly, but just the opposite happened. The noise continued with the throbbing regularity of the pop song I had just heard in my car.

I looked around the restaurant to locate the car's owner and saw an elderly gentleman who couldn't have been younger than sixty fiddling with his car keys and pointing them out the window toward a Toyota Tundra that looked new enough to have an anti-theft alarm.

The elderly gentleman fumbled and fiddled with his keys for some time, making facial expressions like John Belushi and generally looking defeated by technology. Then, tired of the window, he moved to the door and began clicking at his unresponsive car from beneath the fan that keeps the warm air out.

An In N' Out employee approached the man and asked if he wanted any assistance. I am not sure of the man's exact reply, but it was obviously negative and harsh.

The man's wife vocalized her support, announcing to everyone within earshot that the car was new and that he would "have to get used to the alarm." I thought her choice of words was comically poor, but said nothing.

Between us, the sound got annoying really fast. With the door open, one had to speak exceptionally loudly to be heard above the din and, although I was more focused on face stuffing than conversation, the sound was beginning to give me a headache.

It was about five minutes between when the alarm began to sound and when I left In N' Out to return to work, but the alarm was going full bore the entire time. I think I can be fairly confident when I assert that that is one car that will not be stolen. Or maybe it will, just to halt the alarm.

Three-on-one with Ron Paul

It's getting to be that time of year again, and that means it's time for FCN to endorse a candidate. Of course, we're not the types to give out an endorsement without a careful analysis of each person's awesomeness and a confirmatory interview. We decided we wanted a Republican candidate because we don't like Killary Clinton, so we sifted through the mob and settled on someone who really looked promising: Dr. Ron Paul. This guy, we reasoned, was inherently cool. Having a beer with this guy would be fun. We could see ourselves endorsing this guy. So we set up the confirmatory via conference call. The transcript follows.

//BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RON: Ron Paul speaking.

FCN: Hey, this is Funny Class Notes. We negotiated with your secretary for five minutes.

RON: Take all the time you need.

FCN: Great! So, first question: what's the biggest thing that makes your candidacy different from all the other republicans in the ring?

RON: Well, if I had to pick one thing, I think I'd take my support of limited constitutional government. My opponents have clearly demonstrated a lack of willingness to fight for the constitution at best. But perhaps bigger than that is my voting record. I've never voted to raise taxes, restrict gun usage, or increase government power. I voted against the Patriot Act, I voted against the War in Iraq, I voted against internet censorship - I even voted against Martin Luther King Jr Day. That's the number one thing, really: sound fiscal policies. Our budget is a disaster right now, boys. And part of it is related to what may very well be my biggest issue: open trade. Of course, that's not the same thing as open borders. I intend to close the borders, put an end to taxpayer support of criminal aliens, and stop birthright citizenship. That's sort of the raison d'aitre of the campaign, unless you count my stand on Health Freedom. I've consistently introduced and supported bills in congress like the Access to Medical Treatment Act that give Americans choices about their medical care, and I led the opposition to bills like HR 5005, that would have force-immunized everyone against small pox. You know what they put in those immunizations?

FCN: Uh, no ...

RON: Chickens, that's who. Chickens.

FCN: I'm confused.

RON: Were you immunized?

FCN: I ... think so.

RON: Next question.

FCN: Okay, let's see ...

FCN: What do you consider to be your ...

FCN: Hey! I thought we agreed I was going to ask the questions.

FCN: Well, you weren't asking, so ...

FCN: Just let me handle this, all right?

FCN: Okay, sorry. Wow. Touchie, touchie.

RON: While you boys were arguing, I realized what's probably the number one biggest issue in my campaign.

FCN (together): Let's hear it.

RON: Withdrawal from international organizations like NATO, the UN, the WTO, the ICC, CAFTA, GATT, NAFTA, the NAU, the IMF, and the World Bank. We've got to pull out with all urgency. That's the first thing I'll get to when I'm president, just as soon as I'm done codifying protection of unborn life. If there's one thing I learned delivering more than four thousand babies as an ob-gyn, it's that life begins at conception.

FCN: So ....

RON: Actually, it looks like I'm out of time.

FCN: But we only did one question.

RON: It was a good question. It covered a lot. Okay, I really have to go. Bye!

//END TRANSCRIPT

After an interview like that, we had no choice but to go back to the drawing board. We agreed unanimously that Ron Paul is not that candidate for us. I mean, he completely dominated the conversation, made us look like idiots, and generally took away our appetites. We would not have a beer with Ron Paul. He can drink alone, thank you very much.

So we're still on the endorsement hunt. If you have any names to volunteer, we'll welcome them gladly.

Part One: 'Never Let An Opportunity Pass You By'

There is a girl I like at school. Not “like” like or anything terribly mushy, but I really enjoy talking with her and she is amazingly pretty. She’s inhale sharply and clear your calendar kind of pretty. She is “how in the world did God make something this pretty” kind of pretty. She is ... okay, she's a terribly mushy sort of pretty. That didn't sound right, so I'll abandon the visual descriptions and move on.

We’ll call her Carrie, since that’s a close approximation of the name she gave me when we met a week ago in line to take collegiate placement tests. She speaks Spanish and was bemoaning the inconvenience of sitting through a language exam when she already knew her skill level. My agreement started a conversation which covered everything from heritage to plans for school (she’s half Italian and is majoring in International Studies). We didn’t get a chance to exchange contact information, but she assured me that we would “probably run into one another in class.”

Carrie was right. Not a week after our first meeting, I found myself on the other side of a small classroom from her, listening to a lecture on Plato’s critique of democracy. I’ve read the Republic and consider myself a regular advocate of the philosopher king concept, so the lecture had little new to offer. I spent most of the hour, conjuring up various ways to look at Carrie. I caught her eye once and drew out a gorgeous smile of recognition. I considered that delightful grin just reward for the effort I'd exerted.

During a break, I maneuvered across the room and said hi. Carrie told me she’d passed her exams easily and we shared a laugh over the easy language questions which helped to “place” us. Then – foolish, foolish me – I asked about her class schedule. Nobody wants to talk about how they have mister or misses so-and-so for Econ and the tall guy without any fingers for political science. I tried to cover my mistake by asking questions about her teachers, but she remembered hardly any of them and I could tell she was growing bored of the conversation. I concluded it and went back to my seat, mentally kicking myself because I hadn’t asked her out.

Class ended after one of the longest forty-five minutes I had ever experienced; how many times did we have to hear a definition of “philosophy?” But the excruciation finally ground to a halt and I headed for the front of class to sign up for an assignment. I figured I would see Carrie at the front, ask if she had an opening for lunch sometime and exchange contact information. But reality hardly mirrored my plans.

Carrie had already signed up for the assignment and was out the door before I could write "Nigeria," which is, by the way, what I wrote. I charged after her, but when I got to the door, I saw something that was as deflating as it was familiar: Carrie was walking along with another guy. And, to make matters worse, her escort was the class nerd, a low expression introvert with a sandpaper voice. I’d never caught his name, but he had apparently caught Carrie’s.

For a split second, I thought about running after the pair and inviting Carrie out anyway, but that would have been a blatant violation of the masculine code of conduct. Instead I just stood dejected as they marched into the warm early afternoon.

As I watched, I noticed something about Carrie. She looked genuinely happy. She was making emphatic gestures and laughed a couple of times at something the nerd said. She seemed to be enjoying herself with this guy. Maybe, I thought, it was meant to be; maybe I was trying to butt into a situation that demanded my respect and distance.

But then again, my interest wasn’t necessarily romantic. I just wanted to get to know her. She could continue whatever relationship she was developing with the nerd while doing a lunch with me.

I continued thinking about the situation while chewing on some unkosher sweet and sour pork at my favorite Chinese eatery. My thoughts were jumbled and disorganized until I opened my fortune cookie at the end of the meal. There, in bold red lettering, was the answer I was looking for:

NEVER LET AN OPPORTUNITY PASS YOU BY

I folded the message carefully and slipped it into my duct tape wallet. These were words to live by; uninspired but still profound.

Carrie and I have a whole semester of class together and our majors are similar, so we may be interacting as students for a couple of years. But Mid-Term 1 is just around the corner, and I think I know who I will be inviting to my study group.

Desperate Student, Episode 12: Mercenary

This post picks up where previous episodes left off. Make sure you're caught up before proceeding.

Well, I'm back from Africa. But this story will take at least two episodes to tell.

I awoke bright and early, ready to face the day. Then I got a wiff of room 7 in the It'll Have to Do Hotel, and life got dull and dreary right quick.

I heard a knocking outside my window and stumbled over. A black limousine was parked outside. A uniformed chauffeur with a massive forehead stood by the open door, staring at his watch with impatience. I pulled on my clothes, which were starting to smell pretty bad, and stumbled out into the parking lot. The chauffeur straightened and sniffed the air.

"Do you have any baggage, sir?"

"Only the emotional kind," I said, brushing past him into the car. "You're with Jane Goodall, right?"

"Yes, sir." The man dutifully closed the door and went around to the driver's side. I stretched myself out on the luxurious leather upholstery as the car pulled out of the lot and toward the highway. The ride was surprisingly bumpy. I had expected limos to be more comfy.

The ride to the airport was reasonably uneventful and mindlessly boring. We parked near the entrance in a reserved parking spot, and the chauffeur opened the door.

"I am to escort you to the plane," He said stiffly. I nodded and followed him into the main building. The chauffeur, whose name I later learned to be Jeeves, produced two boarding passes at the security checkpoint.

The TSA agents made me strip down to my underwear and put everything in ziploc bags, which were put into rather less-than-sanitary gray bins. The gray bins were put onto a conveyor belt and went under some hanging rubber flaps into a machine. Then came a beep, a flash, and a puff of smoke. I never saw them again.

"Step forward, please," Said an agent, motioning to have me go through a metal detector.

"Will that do the same thing to me that you did to my clothes?"

The agent frowned. His left hand slowly moved across his belt toward his baton. "Step forward, sir."

I stepped forward. Nothing happened. The agent winced and had me step through again. This time, there was a beep. I threw my hands up to my face reflexively and felt hot air rush over my near-naked body. I pulled my hands slowly away. They were covered with hair.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Sterilized you," The agent said casually. Then he frisked me.

Forty minutes later, we ran across the tarmac to a private jet painted with two apes grooming each other. I was wearing a plain blue jumpsuit that Jeeves had ingeniously produced the moment we got through security. Jane Goodall stood at the door of the plane in regal splendor, arms folded. She looked like Hera surveying her domain.

I ran up the steps quickly with Jeeves in tow. "Hey, I'm the Desperate Student."

"And I am Miss Goodall. I look forward to working with you."

I felt like I was in the presence of one of the greatest scientific minds of our age. "Uh ... likewise. Shall we go?"

"Not just yet. We're waiting for the other team members."

I went into the plane, which was luxuriously furnished, and took a seat on one of the couches. Two hours went by. Then tires squeeled outside, doors slammed, and a flurry of shouts and pounding boots sounded up the steps.

"Come on, come on! We're gonna be late!"

"You already are," Said Jane quietly as a dozen men in blue jumpsuits bustled past her into the plane. "You will never be tardy again." Her voice was packed with authority. The men skulked toward their seats with guilty expressions.

Jane took the front. "My friends," She said, "Thank you for your interest in this expedition. The information we are about to collect on orangutans will do wonders toward filling in the gaps in our understanding of these enigmatic and rare animals, and help us build a picture of what steps need to be taken to ensure their continued survival into the next millennium. The work will be difficult, dangerous, and dirty. Your total enthusiasm in this operation is its only hope for success. I'm sure I can count on your one hundred and ten percent effort." Everyone looked around. I got the sense that my fellow team mates were as stupid and lazy as I was. Jane nodded with a slight frown. "Very well. Off we go!"

I fell asleep during the very long ride. No one talked. Nobody really moved. One of the blue jump suit boys shook me awake as we landed.

"Hey, I'm Vince."

"Nice to meet you, Vince. Where are you ..." The wheels slammed into the tarmac, and the whole plane shook and rattled violently. Vince and I were thrown up into the ceiling. Then the couch slid out from under us and down the hall, and we landed face-first on the thick carpet. Vince got up slowly, nose bleeding. The plane had stopped.

"Crash landing?" He asked.

Jane materialized in the doorway, the picture of calm. "There's been a coup," She said. "The airport is in turmoil. Collect the gear and meet me at the cargo bay door in three minutes. We'll have to disembark under fire."

That didn't sound good. I followed Jane to the hold and helped her pack supplies into two rugged jeeps. The other crewmen, led by Vince, and the two pilots appeared soon after. I heard automatic gunfire outside. It didn't sound far off.

Jane took a position in the front passenger seat and pulled a briefcase from the glove compartment, from which she produced an easy-to-assemble sniper rifle. "Who knows how to use a machine gun?" She asked. No one raised their hand. She pointed at me. "Get in the back and ready the .50 caliber." I dutifully loaded up and pulled a massive gun and tripod out of the trunk. The tripod bolted to the floor and gave me an excellent position for laying down fire anywhere the jeep was pointing. Vince hopped up next to me and loaded a belt into the side. Someone else got into the passenger seat. Two more people hopped onto the back bumper armed with sub-machine guns.

"Did you know we'd need all this weaponry?" I asked nervously as our comrades piled into the other jeep and got the rocket launcher ready.

"This is Africa," Said Jane. She reached out with the butt of her rifle and threw a lever on the wall. The back of the plane lowered; the driver tromped on the gas.

We drove out into an open tarmac. We had the only plane on the ground. A dozen vans with red flags were parked alongside the chain-link fence that surrounded the airport, and men with red and white bandannas were shooting in toward the terminal, taking cover from behind their vehicles and the occasional rock or bush. I looked back over my shoulder and saw a desperate handful of Zimbabwean soldiers, most of them armed with pistols, making a stand on the roof. They were being massacred.

I heard a terrific cracking noise and looked down to see Jane calmly chambering the next round into her rifle. "You may fire as soon as you find a target," She said quietly. I squeezed the triggers to the machine gun. Long yellow streamers leapt from the barrel, shredding everything they came in contact with. The whole gun shook violently and my teeth chattered against my tongue. I had a hard time focusing as the jeep careened toward the fence, gaining speed by the second. A rocket whizzed by overhead, leaving a scorching hot exhaust trail, and pounded into the nearest van, sending shrapnel in all directions. I saw white and my ears started to ring. The jeeps raced through the new hole in the fence and off into the foliage beyond. I heard the people in jeep two hosing down the rebels from behind with their SMGs. I became dimly aware that my fingers were still on the triggers. I released them sheepishly and looked over my shoulder. The hail of bullets had decimated a hundred square feet of rain forest. Jane sniffed but said nothing.

Vince slammed the next bullet belt into position and cranked the gun. "This thing is hot," He said.

I nodded. "Well, I think we're done firing it for awhile."

I saw a flash of blue to my right and pivoted the smoking barrel, ready to unleash heck at the slightest provocation. Jane raised her hand and the driver stopped.

"We're being followed," She said. We all stopped and listened to the very loud and chaotic rainforest for several seconds. I wanted to fire in all directions at once, so I didn't fire at all. Finally, Jane nodded. "Continue."

Alas, we only made it a hundred more feet before the bumper riders were forced to walk ahead, slashing the trail with machetes. The going was unspeakably slow. The day was hot and sticky. The men (including myself) removed as much as we thought Jane would allow and guzzled water from the canteens. Jane sat calmly in the passenger seat nursing her rifle. She didn't even break a sweat.

Nightfall brought little relief from the heat. We turned on the jeep headlights and kept pushing, taking thirty minute shifts with the machetes. I don't think we went more than two miles per hour.

They attacked at sunrise.

The foliage was just starting to lighten when I heard a twang behind me. A bright blue arrow thudded into Vince, who fell to the ground, frothing at the mouth. It took me just four seconds to get the machine gun turned around and working. Hundreds of bullets tore the foliage, ripping the jungle to shreds. The air heated around me. I saw distortion above the gun.

Someone fired a rocket. It detonated against the wall of trees, and the blast lifted two unlucky crewmen into the air. Their flailing arms tangled in the vines overhead and stayed there. I saw a tall, half-naked savage jump into the path we had cut into the jungle. His aspect was hideous - his body smeared with blue paint; tooth necklaces dangling from his neck; a curious horn design tattooed onto his face. He raised his bow to the canopy above and released a savage yell. I swiveled and blasted away.

For about ten seconds, no one moved. The bullets seemed to hit anything and everything but the savage. Then Jane leveled the rifle and fired. The native yelped and ducked into the trees. A few moments later, he was gone. A few moments after that, the gun jammed.

"Report!" Jane ordered. No one moved for a moment. I noticed she was looking at me.

"Uh ... we were attacked. By savages. Can't have been less than a dozen. They killed three of our men. I think we nicked one. We should probably keep moving before they tell the others."

"You are an imbecile," Jane reported. She didn't say it maliciously. She just wanted to let me know. "There were two of them. They fired a single arrow, probably as a warning. No one was seriously hurt."

"... oh."

"In the future, you will emulate my accuracy in all your reports."

"Okay."

"You didn't recognize the markings?"

"Uh ... no."

"Those were contributors to the humor blog Really Funny Class Notes. I doubt they'll be back."

Vince got up, wiping his mouth, and pulled the shaft from his back. "Itches," He reported.

"Let us proceed to the campsite," Jane ordered.

We kept going until around noon. Finally, we reached a modest sort of clearing, which appeared to have been carefully situated in the exact middle of nowhere. Jane nodded approvingly and dismounted.

"Pitch camp," She ordered. "Tomorrow, the hard work begins."

Life Tip #37

Don't steal plants from the back of other people's vehicles.

If you must steal plants from the trunk of other people's vehicles, make sure the vehicle doesn't belong to a government agency.

If you must steal plants from the back of a government vehicle, make sure the plants are not marijuana.

If you must steal marijuana from the back of a government vehicle, make sure the car isn't registered to the Department of Drug Enforcement Agency.