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Kickass Phone Rates from 3U
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Author's Note: This is a piece I wrote for the "Headless Norseman", a now-defunct column that appeared in Luther College's student-run newspaper, Chips. Senior students were able to be published anonymously, which allowed them to speak their minds on various issues around campus. This was my contribution to the Headless column my senior year. Within the glass aquarium where she hangs out, my lizard, Debbie, is master of her world and fire and brimstone to anyone who dares invade it (especially a happenstance cricket). A branch, a smack of water, a little heat courtesy of GE (and mother Luther), and she is as happy as a bagel-laden squirrel. Yet there is something distinctive here. Though she thinks she has the world by the tail on a downhill pull, she doesn't remember that lizards' tails are like Snap-On tools--they're detachable. Just when you think you have ahold of something tangible, it breaks off and you find yourself tumbling down through the void into an unknown place. Something similar happened to her late mate Slacker who is now navigating the sewer system of Brunsdale. At Roscoe's, they pour you shots. In Debbie's world, she calls the shots. On the other side of the steamed-over glass, I call them. She gets lights out when I struggle into bed (3 am-ish), gets water when I think of it, and brown crickets to play with whenever I can justify the trek into the inner guts of Decorah. New sticks, new rocks, and new gravel are all courtesy of my spare (read as: procrastination) time whenever I feel generous. Most days we're content enough to sun ourselves on the sticks, lick up a little water, and snag a cricketburger in Marty's for that have-to-have snack (compliments of meal transfer). The glass, to us, doesn't exist, and for the most part, it doesn't have to. Debbie has a neat little trick. She can suddenly leap from her perch on a stick to the glass of her cage, sticking on the side of it like one of those odd in-the-cereal-box toys you had in the 80's. From there, she checks out the place and converses with the dust bunnies rapidly multiplying in my bedroom. (Bunnies! Argh.) The problem with this maneuver is that it works about one time in ten. A leap, and SMACK! Lizard says an intimate hello to plexiglass and ricochets like a cueball. After tumbling across the gravel she gets up, looking like a senior with Baker Village AfterParty Syndrome. Something, which never before mattered in her two cubic foot world, has suddenly stopped her cold. Think about the glass in your world. Where does your world end right now? I'm not talking about the proverbial Luther bubblesphere that keeps us from knowing about such things like China being blown off the map. I'm talking about your potential glass. Where the shots are called. Think of a number. No, you're wrong, I'm sorry, next please. So much can be said about what you are supposedly learning during your sentence here. Books 'n' learnin' 'n' life.and one lesson perhaps you haven't considered 'til now (you naïve lizard, you.) The shots. It's all about who calls the shots. Is it you? If it is, are you where you want to be? If it's not, does it matter? If you are master only within your own world, who feeds you crickets? Who gives you water? Who shuts out the lights when it's bedtime? Leap, my child. Leap to break the glass of the world that contains you and your mind and find a new home, a new place, a new definition for this thing called life. In the great scheme of things, you only get one shot. ONE. You only have 70 some odd years, and you're already 20ish. When will you start? What are you waiting for? Realize who's calling the shots, realize where and if you have choices. Once you have picked some out, leap with all your might, but watch out for the glass. Goodnight, Debbie. <click> |
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