You've Got To Be Smurfing Kidding Me.

This week has been an interesting one. Interviews, job offers, declinations of said offers, and coming to terms with truths I'd rather not recognize. Such as the beast known as Paris Hilton/Travis Barker. Since when does white trash get to date rich trash? My world is turned upside down.

Aside from that, my own financial shortcomings have slapped me brisquely 'cross the face, as has my own intelligence. That's right, intelligence. In highscool I was in the top 50 of my class, and in college I pulled down a mighty 2.97 (nothing to stellar there), and yet I seem to be, when compared to my coworkers at Togo's/Baskin Robbins, purveyors of fine sandwiches and iced creams, to be considered a genius. That's right, genius. Today, not one, but two people asked me, bewilderment on their faces, "How do you know so many words?" (to which my response was, "I'm an English major. I know words 'n' stuff,")

I need not tell you how stunned I was at this confession of naivete. Especially since the words they referred to were nothing out of the ordinary. Yes, I refer to our cheese collection as a "medley of dairy delights," and a "smorgasborgical carnival of cheese," but this is nothing a John Cleese fanatic would find out of the ordinary. It is true, also, that roast beef is, in Brittaspeak, referred to as "roasted beast", but again, any singular being who has viewed Jon Stewart's delightful pontifications will find this nothing out of the ordinary. Yet, to the employees of Togo's/Baskin Robbins, purveyors of fine sandwiches and iced creams, this seems to be an anomaly.

Since when did owning a thesaurus become a rarity? Or watching the Daily Show? The Colbert Report (silent "t")? Or having an encyclopediac knowledge of Monty Python a talent to be rivaled with? Indeed, the amazement which crosses the faces of my coworkers when I merely state, "You've got to be smurfing kidding me," is a sight to behold.

Yes, I have two degrees and speak mutliple languages, but this shouldn't set me too far apart from those pursuing their AA's, should it? Or perhaps it is in instances such as these that one truly recognizes how much they have learned at their institution of higher knowledge. Zot.

Good lord get me out of this valley.