When I wake up in the morning, love,
And the sunshine hurts my eyes,
And something without warning, love,
Bears heavy on my mind ..
I'm back in my favourite computer cluster again.
I was working earlier when two blokes and a little kid came in. This was a pretty odd sight at 8pm in a university computer cluster, but I didn't really question it. The blokes were maybe mature students and as far as I'm aware, gay and speaking Italian. The little kid spoke English and Italian and didn't seem to have a sexual preference.
One of the Italian guys, who we will call Luigi, is wearing this shirt with "God made weed. Figure that out!" written on it. Figure out how god made weed? I don't get it. The other one, who we'll call Mario, had a t-shirt with "AMSTERDAM" written on it. It gave me an idea for a sitcom called "My two gay Italian dads who like to get high". The kid, about 5, who we'll call Tony, thankfully wore a shirt without a stoner motif.
The guy they sat next to was British. He was alone in here, like me, with these thick black chunky glasses and a little mini-fro. He looked like he read Hemingway and had aspirations to be a poet or novelist.
Anyhow, they're all sitting there in the row in front. Luigi reaches into his bag and started taking out some food.
Now, I'm all for breaking the 'no food and drink' rules in computer clusters, but this was really untrue. Out of the bag came sandwiches, big bags of kettle chips, fruit, one of those tubs of mini-flapjacks, a flask, 2 cans of Relentless and other assorted bits. It was like the Mary Poppins bag; it could almost have been a stunt. Hemingway, unlike me and 10 or so other people in the cluster who are watching with our mouths slightly open at the sight of all this food (munchies joke, anyone?) continues to work, apparently oblivious.
Mario then takes a can of Relentless, and hands it to Tony. The thing had either been shaken up good and proper or Tony was shit at opening cans, because without warning the thing suddenly fizzes out and over and a jet of energy drink hits Hemingway squarely in the face. Upon seeing this, the kid goes "ooh" and drops the can, where it fizzes and spills round on the floor, meaning Hemingway has to jump up in full view of the cluster, dripping Relentless, to avoid it. This was where the humiliation factor kicked in.
I felt bad for the guy, but he took it pretty well. You can't really get mad at a cute little kid in a computer room, not least one with two mysterious high Italian dads. They're just unpredictable. And then Mario tried to laugh it off a bit, and Luigi joined in, which seemed a little too optimistic, but they were probably high, who can blame them?
The saddest part was that it happened to this guy. It could have happened to anyone else in that cluster. If it had been a group of guys, they'd have got a kick and more of a laugh out of it. If it was a girl, everyone would have rushed to her aid. But instead it was Hemingway, probably a Fresher, a little self-conscious, maybe the first time he's dared to venture out of his halls to a computer cluster, and the first thing that happens is he gets sprayed in the head by a kids can of energy drink, in front of a small crowd.
They say university can be tough but no-one deserves to be humiliated by an Italian kid with his two gay dads that are high.
