The Dumbass Class

Mindset 101: a class to improve your mindset, a class to help you achieve your academic goals, a class to improve study habits, a class to prove to you what a dumbass you really are.

And I'm in it.

This was not my choice, mind you. The "Mindset for Academic Achievement" class, or as I like to call it, the "Let's Waste Everybody's Time" class, is recommended to students who are on academic probation. Yes, I am currently one of these students. Unfortunately. You would think this class would be telling you motivating things like,

"It's not that you can't do it, you just need to apply yourself!"

or,

"So what you messed up?! This is your SECOND CHANCE."

or,

"You may be dumb, but you sure are smokin' hot!"

See? Any of these things would motivate me to do better. But no. That's not how it is. Want some examples? I think you need some examples.

These are some bits and pieces taken straight from my Mindset textbook. Read 'em and weep. Or, read 'em and feel like a moron.

"You wonder what you'll tell your parents, friends, and significant others. If they find out about your poor grades, they'll think you're a big loser!"

GEE. THANKS. First of all, if your "significant other" thinks you're a big loser for getting bad grades, maybe you shouldn't be dating them in the first place. Second of all, I wasn't even thinking I was a "loser;" the word, "loser" did not even enter my mind, and here I am, reading my textbook, trying to be a good little student, and then they suggest to me that maybe I'm thinking I'm a big loser. WELL I WASN'T THINKING THAT UNTIL YOU BROUGHT IT UP.

"Students can determine their progress in the class by checking their grades."

No! What?! Wait...so you're telling me...that my grades can show me how well I am doing in a class? So...grades have something to do with school? Wow! I never knew that! Thank you, Mindset textbook! You are really helping me!

"Apply strategies in this book to transform your tarnished academic record into one that SHINES!"

And then maybe your professor will give you a GOLD STAR STICKER! But if you do badly...then your professor may SPANK YOU!

"Do you choose to "use it" or would you rather "lose it?"

...are we still talking about school here?

"What do you think? Do these strategies deserve a "thumbs up," a "sideways thumb," or a "thumbs down?"

I am really glad that college has taught me to communicate with the angles of my thumbs.

"What do you think of THIS strategy - is it good, bad, or ugly?"

I didn't know Clint Eastwood wrote this book!

"One strategy is to use flash cards to study. On a scale from 1 (would make my life worse) to 10 (would rock my world), to what degree would this strategy change your life?

Flash cards really could change my life, couldn't they? Colored pieces of paper with words on them are a very life-changing thing, and I'm glad the authors of this text have been considerate enough to use my "teenage lingo" so I can understand what they mean by 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. I'd give it an 8 (I'd tap dat).

"If you ever visited the cockpit of an airplane, you probably noticed dozens of switches, gauges, and other gizmos on the control panel. Each instrument plays an important role in keeping the plane in flight...however, when something goes wrong, warning lights start flashing. Red lights indicate far more serious problems."

Wow, THIS paragraph applies to the audience! Since everyone has, at least once in their lives, been in the COCKPIT of an airplane! Now I really understand, thank you! I would also like to thank you for alerting a 19-year-old the meaning behind "red light." Silly me, all these years of driving and I never knew I was supposed to stop at those blinking thingies above me! I feel so smart now that I know THAT.

"Agree to reward yourself when you achieve your desired results of improving your GPA."

Oh, I will. And I'll start by burning this book, you fucking assholes.

Us "Mindset students" have been taught that MINDSET is an acronym, standing for:

Motivation

Initiative

Navigating

Direction

Study skills

Expectations

Time Management

I must say that I have really been using these 7 words and applying them to my life. I am Motivated to take the Initiative to Navigate myself in the Direction of a trash can and as I Study its current contents I Expect that finding Time to toss this fucking book inside of it will not be too hard to Manage. Thank you, Mindset class! You've really helped me! I don't feel like a fucking idiot AT ALL!

Seven Men A-Humping

I was 16 when I went to Paris.

(Sounds like the intro to a movie, doesn't it?)

I was 16 when I went to Paris...and that's where I fell in love.

(Well guess what. This isn't a movie.)

I was 16 when I went to Paris...and that's where I was humped by 7 Frenchmen.

Yeah, yeah, I know what you're thinking...

"Way to go, Natasha! Smother that French toast with a batch of your own syrup! Yeah, baby!"

Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but that is not how it went.

It all started in a small cafe with three of my friends. (If you converted this situation into some kind of algebraic equation, it would go something like this):

If you have four young teenage girls each ordering one 4 dollar cup of coffee from one male waiter, and two of the girls are adding a shot of espresso for an extra 75 cents, but one of the girls is adding whipped cream for an extra 25 cents, which girl will the waiter hit on first?

...and they said I should have taken a math class my senior year. Please.

"I'd like a cup of coffee, please."

"Of course, of course, Miss...?"

"...Natasha."

"Natasha....Natashaaaaaaa...are you American, Natasha?"

"Yep, I'm from America!"

"You don't look American."

"Well, I am!"

"I've heard a lot about American girls..."

"Have you now."

"Yes...I hear they're a lot different than European girls..."

"Oh, really?"

"I'll go get your coffee now."

He comes back, coffee in hand, mysterious male friend at his side.

"Hello, American girls!"

"Hi!"

"You want to go to a disco with us tonight, yes?"

"Hehehe!"

What? We were 16. We didn't know any better but to sit back and giggle at the 25-year-old perverts. Who happened to be quite attractive.

"We can't; we came here with a group of people and we have plans tonight..."

It scares me to think if we would have gone with them had we not had a mandatory engagement.

"You should forget about those other plans, yes?"

"HEHEHEHE!"

Look. I've already explained the giggling thing. You're just going to have to get over it.

"You know what the ladies call me?"

Random questions like this can never be good.

"What?"

"Superman."

"Superman?"

Along with the giggles often come questions you wish you, yourself, had not asked.

"Yes, Superman, because I be with THREE girls one night, THREE girls at the same time, in my bed, and they call me Superman."

Notice the word, "girls." Also notice the fact that OUR WAITER IS TELLING US ABOUT HIS THREESOMES AND WINKING AT US.

This evening was significant because, although we did succumb to a bout of the gigglies, we were not oblivious to our new outlook on Frenchmen. Well, let me correct myself: on the stereotypes Frenchmen believed were true regarding American girls and their frivolous friskiness. Which, while this can hold true for many girls out there, hence the skyrocketing on the "YOU HAVE A DISEASE; KEEP YOUR TONGUE IN YOUR MOUTH FROM NOW ON" charts, it did not match up to myself and my friends. BECAUSE WE'RE NOT SKANKY WHORES.

This is where we jump a couple days ahead on the, "Encounters With Frenchmen" Timeline, to none other than...New Year's Eve.

The streets were nothing short of chaos. As we walked along the sidewalk, we had to dodge people left and right (whether this was because there were a lot of people or because there were a lot of people stumbling around due to intoxication, I'm still not sure), and not one person was lacking the accessory of the evening: a bottle of wine. The whole time I crossed paths with a fellow teenager, a teenager with the ability to freely carry alcohol in their hand, only one thought was able to consume my mind.

Why am I not French. Why am I not French. Why am I not French. Why am I not French.

But no matter! It's not like I MIND the American law of prohibiting people under the age of 21 to drink! It's not like if we had been able to drink while we were young, we wouldn't go so haywire with it when we FINALLY were of legal age; it's not like a lot of people would still be ALIVE had they not had to wait over two decades to get to drink, and then not know how to handle it since they had been holding off all their lives! It's not like America is FUCKING RETARDED when it comes to alcohol!

As everyone else stumbled around screaming, "Bonne année!" (pronounced bone-oh-nay) (it means, "Happy New Year"), my friends and I cautiously wandered the streets, in complete awe of the scene before our eyes. It was beautiful...it was magical...it was a moment I'd never forget...especially when 7 men emerged from an alley... and began to hump us.

"Bonne année!"

They hit my friend Josie first.

"Man down! Man down!"

We tried to alert the group, but soon it was too late.

"Bonne année!"

They had swarmed us.

"Call for back-up! Repeat: call for back-up!"

But the 7 Frenchmen had their own idea of "back-up."

"Bonne année!"

We had no choice but to initiate Plan A.

"STOP, DROP, AND ROLL! STOP, DROP, AND ROLL!"

It was pointless; we had been seized.

"Bonne année!"

And conquered.

"WHAT TO I DO WHAT DO I DO!"

Josie shouted to me.

"WHAT DO I DO WHAT DO I DO!"

I shouted to Josie.

"Bonne année!"

The Frenchmen shouted to no one in particular.

It was no use; they continued to thrust their pelvises at any part of our body they could come near to. In our desperate attempt for survival, we moved on to Plan B.

"AAHHHHHHH!"

We began to scream.

Our tour guide turned around. FINALLY we had caught his attention.

"HELP USSSSSS!"

"Ha! Ha! Ha! That's what we do in France!"

Back to Plan B.

"AAHHHHHHH!"

"Bonne année!"

"AAHHHHHHHHH!"

"Bonne année!"

"AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"OUR TOUR GUIDE IS AN ASS!"

"THESE GUYS ARE GRABBING MY ASS!"

We were in the middle of a battle that we were sure we would lose. We had no ammunition but our own individual pair of grenades, and that is exactly what these men seemed to be after as they tumultuously tried to fire off their own individual missiles. And people say the Vietcong was fierce...they don't even come close to the fierceness of the VietCOCK.

BUT, just as we were about to surrender, a neighboring troop of fellow females passed us, and the Vietcock immediately migrated to their next battlefield, with enthusiastic shouts of, "Bonne année!"

(Now I know why they pronounce it, BONE-oh-nay.)

Though our limbs were warm with friction, though our innocence was publicly stolen from us, though our last night in Paris was spent getting involuntarily dry-humped by drunken strangers, these strangers had moved on to their next target, which, in my optimistic opinion, means only one thing:

Mission accomplished.

Natasha Ferrier (a.k.a. The Cliché Conjurer)

I find that whenever something doesn't go as I had planned, the easiest way to accept it is to spout off some cliché. Let's say, for instance, someone broke into your house, stole all of your belongings, shaved your cat, and then burned your entire house down, and the only survivors of this catastrophe were you, your now-bald cat, and some marshmallow Peeps. (they don't burn, ya know.) This is when I come in. You're crying, you're screaming, you're telling your cat to shove off because it's bald and creeping you the fuck out, and all I have to say is,

"Cheer up, kid! After all, everything happens for a reason."

You stop crying. You lift your head up. You look at me, and you smile.

"Gee, I never thought of it like THAT!"

"That's what I'm here for! To brighten the spirits of those less fortunate with cliché sayings that have uncommonly known explanations! And YES, I do expect you to take what I say to heart without questioning it at all! Because I'm Natasha Ferrier, The Cliché Conjurer, at your service!"

I did not realize the tendency I had to blurt out clichés at what were probably not the best of times until I was informed of this habit.

"I wonder if he likes me or not..."

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"Yeah but it's really bothering me...when will I KNOW?"

"Only time will tell."

"WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THAT."

"What?"

"You just respond to whatever problem I have with some random idiom and I HATE it."

"Love and hate are two horns on the same goat."

"SEE?"

"What?"

"You picked me up to talk about this, but you're not really SAYING anything to help!

"Actions speak louder than words."

"STOP IT!"

"What?!"

"None of those even make sense!"

"Things could always be worse."

"AH! You are impossible to talk to. I'm ignoring you for the rest of the night."

"Easier said than done."

"..."

"You're really going to ignore me?"

"..."

"Are you serious?"

"..."

"Silence is golden."

"UGH!"

Of course, I do realize that there are some sayings, clichés, idioms, and euphemisms that make absolutely NO sense at all, and that is why all of you reading this today have been granted the privilege to not only learn a cliché or two, but also learn my own personal opinion of them. Maybe one day you can be a Cliché Conjurer yourself! (Though don't expect to master the art right from the get go; it took me years to perfect my skills. And what sweet skills they are.)

"You can't judge a book by its cover."

Actually, I can. And I do, often. And until a book featuring Fabio on the cover holding some chick with her shirt mysteriously torn conveniently across her breasts wins the Pulitzer Prize, I will continue to do so.

"A watched pot never boils."

Whoever made this one up obviously had never watched a pot. Smoked some pot, maybe, but certainly never watched one. Because a watched pot DOES boil, and how do I know that? Because I've WATCHED one, and what did it do? It BOILED.

"When in Rome..."

When in Rome...what? How did this saying survive all these years? The guy who wrote it OBVIOUSLY wasn't done with the saying, and some idiot found it and thought, "This is brilliant! When in Rome! I don't know exactly what that means...it must be some kind of poetry! Yes! Abstract art! The kind of art that people only pretend to understand because they feel like being DIFFERENT, when really, any 5-year-old could have written this and it would have merely been regarded as childish gibberish and been put on the refrigerator door by Mommy! But since an adult wrote this...well, it's abstract ART!"

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

What's going to hurt you more? A pebble thrown at your big toe, or someone telling you you're a fucking fat tub of lard who's going nowhere in life and has bad B.O.? If you chose the pebble, you might want to continue reading to the next saying on the list.

"You're an idiot."

Okay, this one really isn't a cliché; I just felt the dire need to address the audience who chose the pebble. Moving on.

"I'm happy as a clam."

Where the hell was I when scientists discovered that sea organisms had emotions?

"Drunk as a skunk."

And where the hell was I when they discovered that skunks were the alcoholics of the mammals?

"Cool as a cucumber."

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous.

"Don't toot your own horn."

Who else's horn am I gonna toot? Yours? A stranger's? NO. If there's a horn to be tooted, it's going to be my own, thank you very much. I'm not going to just go around tooting other people's horns. Because that's WEIRD. And you know what else is weird? "Toot." Why not "honk?" Or "beep?" Toot? Are you kidding me? You think I'm going to take you seriously when you say that?

"Walking on Cloud 9."

Hold on a second here...what happened to Clouds 1 through 8? Are they not as good of clouds? Well why not? Aren't all clouds pretty much the same? Is the ninth cloud really the best of the bunch? How many clouds are they, anyway? Has anyone ever counted the clouds? I doubt it.

"You say potayto, I say potahto."

No you do not. Because no one says, 'potahto.' That's retarded. That's like if I said, "You say banana, I say BaNONa." You'd be like, "What? Who the fuck says baNONa?" to which I would respond, "You say potayto, I say potahto," and yet for some reason this would automatically be acceptable, and you would say, "Ah...well, to each his own," when just a minute ago you were about to drop me off in the middle of the freeway because I prefer my yellow fruit of mush to be pronounced, "BaNONa."

"Distance makes the heart grow fonder."

Oh, how sweet!

"Out of sight, out of mind."

Wait, what? You just told me distance makes the heart grow FONDER, and now you're telling me that if I'm not seen then I'm not in anyone's mind? What about the DISTANCE? REMEMBER THE DISTANCE? Why must you confuse me like this! Damn you!

"Ask and you shall receive."

HA! Right. You keep on thinkin' that, you naive dimwit.

"Good things come to those who wait."

Look! It's the naive dimwit again, BACK to waste my time with some more bullshit! Hey! Maybe if I wait awhile, the naive dimwit will go away! Because that would be a good thing!

"Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all."

Nope; dimwit's back.

"Fake it till you make it."

I think this one really only applies to the women of the world.

"Two heads is better than one."

Don't worry, men of the world; I found one that only applies to you, as well.

"Busy hands are happy hands."

(As long as they're not my hands...or hand...)

"The best thing since sliced bread."

Whoa! No way! It can't be! Nothing is as absolutely wonderful as bread that has been cut down the middle a few times! It's just not possible! Whoever is the best thing since sliced bread must really be a somebody...man...if only I could be better than sliced bread! I'm just a dumb HUMAN, who's never been sliced! Not even once! Damn you, bread! Damn you AND your slices!

"When one door closes, another door opens."

Yeah, at the same time 8 other doors close. Then what will happen with that one open door? You won't do shit about it, and then it, too, will close. But that's alright! Because yet ANOTHER door will open! And you find yourself in this neverending cycle of opening and closing doors and I won't blame you if you ask who the HELL keeps closing all these damn doors and whoever it is must have a LOT of time on his hands.

"Leave no stone unturned."

And so does this guy.

"Speak softly and carry a big stick."

I left this one last on the list, because this one baffles me the most. By FAR. Speak softly and carry a big stick? Who am I, Gandalf? You think anyone is going to listen to a guy who speaks softly? Or for that matter, listen to a guy who carries a big stick with him everywhere he goes? EARTH TO HUMANS: Lord of the Rings is FICTION; it's FAKE; in the real world, people don't listen to guys who speak softly and carry big sticks; in the real world, people sell those guys heroin and give them some newspaper to sleep on.

I think it's time we all take a second glance at the ridiculous phrases we use and realize how absurd we all sound when we say them, thinking we sound wise. Seriously, people, I mean it. Wake up and smell the roses.