There is a certain co-worker whom I will call El Cholo (which is Spanish slang for "Mexican gangsta", in case you didn't know). He is 21 years old and super, super thin, so thin that it seems that everything on him is pointy--elbows, chin, nose, shoulders, even his eyes seem pointy.
The first time I spoke with El Cholo, it came up that I was only temporary help for the summer. At this point, he asked me if I was in college. I responded that I would be getting my master's this fall. Upon learning that I had been and will continue being a college student, El Cholo's immediate reaction was to ask "How many times did you get laid?"
To be honest, I'd seen El Cholo around in times past, but I had been ignoring him on purpose. I wasn't too impressed with him, and now I can chalk up another accurate first impression. Sure, El Cholo has tried to strike up conversations with me and be friendly, but all he wants to discuss are sexual escapades. He has never been to college and seems to think that college is nothing more than a perpetual hip-hop music video. You know the kind, the ones of wild parties with trashed dudes hooking up with girls who are even more trashed than they are.
Today, he sat down next to me in the break room and, once again, began interrogating me about my college sex life. "How many times did you get laid?" "What's your craziest story?" "You into fat chics?" "You have any kids?" "How can you not have any kids if you've been to college?" "What were the parties like?" "What kind of car do you drive? A Buick? You're never going to get laid in that."
I sidestepped most of his questions and curtly answered the ones that weren't completely trashy and/or ridiculous. Really, I just wanted him to go away, and being short with him was my subtle way of trying to get him to stop talking. I was not willing to answer most of his questions for a couple of reasons: 1) I wasn't wild in college by any stretch of the imagination. I had fun and was irresponsible on many occasions, but I focused more on grades than on being a complete douche bag, and I knew that if I told El Cholo this that his sex-warped mind wouldn't be able to process it, and 2) I didn't want to encourage him to continue talking to me.
Eventually, he started telling me stories about his own sexual conquests. He even pulled out his cellphone and showed me a couple of X-rated pictures taken while in the act. I really wanted to get up and leave, but I didn't want to make a scene or make things awkward when I encountered him at work in the future. And since I would be leaving the break room soon, I decided to stick it out. If he noticed my displeasure, he didn't show any sign whatsoever. He told me about how he was having sex with a girl in her house and how her mother walked in on them. But all this mother did was tell them to use protection and then left the room. Afterwards, he showered, ate food in their kitchen, said "what's up" to the girl's mother, and then never talked to the girl again.
At one point he told me I had wasted my time in college for not being wild. "What stories are you going to tell your kids. I studied hard and got good grades? Boring! That's not a story! You're supposed to travel the world, have kids all over the place and not even know about them until one day--AHH--there's your son's twin walking down the street." I responded that it was clear that he and I had very different priorities. What an understatement. I didn't say this, but I think our different priorities might be why I am going to graduate school in one of the United State's most-loved cities and he's working in a small town at an ice-cream factory with no plans of ever leaving. Look at me wasting my life.
I know that's harsh. I am not an elitist who thinks you have to go to college to be worth something. I'm not like that at all. But El Cholo is just a young, self-centered, conceited jerk who has no aspirations other than fulfilling his immediate desires. There may be more to him than that, but I'm not going to seek that out. I have better things to do with my time than to wade through his mindless jargon to try and find some semblance of a complex person.
I'm a jerk,. I know. But you would be too if you had to sit through ten minutes of El Cholo's narrow-minded, obsessive sex ranting.
Daily Ice-Cream Consumption
1 strawberry crunch bar, 3 ice-cream candy bars, 1 chocolate ice-cream waffle cone, 2 caramel ice-cream waffle cones
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