Frenzied Daddy

This is the first thing that burns my britches. I mean — what exactly are they trying to say here? Of course, it doesn’t have to be insulting- but I work with what I get.

The second thing that burns my britches is that my lovely wife has to surrender her office. She’s had a nice office downstairs, away from all the “normal” sales folks, and now she’s being required to move to a cubicle. Sally Forth not withstanding, it feels like a demotion; she gives up a lot of space, some privacy, a lovely view of the watershed behind work.

Yes, she’s had a raise recently. What’s actually happening is that a manager-type is moving over from our other location, and “needs an office.” So, as low woman on the totem pole, she gets evicted. It works, sort of, because she’s in sales and she’s moving into a cubicle in the sales department. It’s just another reminder that it’s not my money being spent here, and they’re not my decisions to make.

This morning’s Daria talked at some length about a teacher-from-hell, her science teacher. I, on the other hand, suffered at the hands of Mr Keupker, math genius. He wasn’t so bad, when I was a junior in High School, in pre-calculus. But when we moved into Senior year and actual Calculus, the devil came out.

Our Calculus class was small; about seven people. We had a very smart transfer from Texas, a Romanian transfer student, some assorted Chess players, and a young lady I had a crush on- a smart, vivacious, athletic woman named Michelle Signor. Who happened to be dating a smart, vivacious wrestler named Nik. One of my vivid memories of Mr Keupker was him standing behind Michelle’s desk wondering aloud “why are you in this class?” as she worked on a class problem. Though she was smart, she was one of those women who believed her press releases- and Math was hard for her. She had enough problems with the “I’m not smart” language she was using that Mr Keupker was just an extra knife in her back.

I struggled along in Calculus- pulling a bare C, until Mr Keupker announced that his theory on education meant that if you got an A on the final test, he’d give you an A for the class (because you’d have learned it by then, right?). So, I felt justified when I finished my test first, turned it in and scored a 91 percent on the test. I was never one of his favorites in the class either.