7 Habits

I Put the "P" in Princeton
9 March 2004

Taking drugs is not allowed at McDonald's. Remember that the next time you head to Mickey D's. I was notified of this policy while sipping Dayquil at Wal-Mart's in-store McDonald's in Princeton, New Jersey.

But I get ahead of myself.

I spent a good portion of yesterday peeling snot off my eyeballs. It was absolutely disgusting! I have no idea what the heck kind of ailment this qualifies for, but it's something I have never experienced before and hope to never experience again.

It started when I woke up in the morning. There was an unusual build up of mucus that I had to dry up. Throughout the day, the eyes were buggin' me. Then there was the early evening flight to New Jersey. When I arrived in Newark, at midnight, even the security guards were being courteous to me and commented on how I looked so tired. That's quite a change in attitude from the horrendous experience I had over the Christmas holidays one year; that was a nightmarish time at Newark courtesy of Continental Airlines.

By the time I checked into the hotel in Princeton (1:30 a.m.), I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets and my head was going to explode. No wonder. When I looked in the mirror I was shocked to see my eyes were basically orbs of blood and mighty Satanic looking. There was not a speck of white to be found.

You haven't lived until you've stared yourself down in the mirror of some strange hotel room and scraped snot-covered contacts off eyeballs that resemble pools of blood with eerie green discs floating in the middle. Although I must admit it was quite dramatic the way the red brought out the green in my eyes all the more.

I always bring my glasses with me just in case I lose a contact. Now I'm wearing my Takumi specs full time for the first time in years. Not the greatest circumstances under which to start a certification course.

Adding insult to injury, I had to "cruise" the streets of Princeton in the Pimp Mobile (er, rather, the Pimp Barge), an enormous Grand Marquis with a gawdy interior. It was brand new; only 70 miles on it. Who buys these things, though, really? Thoroughly impractical. I'll take my PT Cruiser any day over one of those monsters.

After the first day of class, I decided to check out Princeton's campus and found it much chillier than anticipated. As has happened on just about every trip I've taken over the past couple years, I found myself in need of heavier clothes. Time to go shopping yet again.

Amazingly enough, the Princeton campus bookstore is called "U-2" and, needless to say, I felt right at home. While wearing my specs and black leather, checking out the Princeton Tigers rugby shrits, I was asked by a gaggle of southern visitors how much tuition was. I told them it's pocket change (in actuality: it's about $40,000/year).

Princeton, the turf of Albert Einstein and John Nash, is a very nice campus full of surprisingly nice people, not the snotty Ivy League upper-crusties I was expecting. While I do remember visiting Princeton during my East Coast days, I don't remember the details. I'll need to plunder the Mattsonian and check the Young Mattopia Jones Chronicles.

After picking up a Princeton sweatshirt and a Tigers rugby shirt, it was off to dinner. The biggest disappointment with Princeton is the lack of Irish pubs. But I made do with a place called The Annex, a joint that dates back to 1949 and hasn't seen an interior renovation since the Rat Pack days.

After a decent prime rib dinner and some Guinness, it was time to, well, pee. In the men's room, I met a professor type with white hair, glasses, tweed jacket, and a dishevelled white shirt. He asked if I had ever been in a colder men's room. I said "No," and, as a matter of fact, I was quite impressed with all the steam coming off my pee. It was really cool, no pun intended.

The professor tried his best to explain the science of it all, as to why the architecture and ventilation of the men's room created such a frigid atmosphere, but he didn't quite understand it completely himself. Somebody explained it to him and he was trying to explain it to me. Nonetheless, it was highly entertaining to watch him gesture to the ceiling and the floor and try to explain the physics of it all.

I'm a simple person and I was willing to simply take it at face value: It's cold in there. Major shrinkage.

Anyway, as a nightcap, I hit the Starbucks on Nassau street. It's a great spot to people watch while sippin' cappuccino across the street from the campus. Lots of laptops and textbooks. Even so, there are still simple joys to be had in life: Two kids grabbed the prized lounge chairs by the window, but then they just as quickly decided to go home and watch American Idol.

Then a guy, whom I'd estimate to be one of the village quacks, sat across from me and told me I looked like an old friend of his. Amidst all this, I realized I significantly over-tipped the merely adequate waiter at The Annex. And so it was that Stupid Mistake #1 hit me. (Although, after struggling with my stupidity, I also recalled the waiter had undercharged me for dinner. It must've been my subconscious compensating for the under-billing.)

Stupid Mistake #2 followed quickly on the heels of #1. Walking back to the Pimp Barge, I fumbled around to find my car key. It was nowhere to be found. The last thing I really needed to deal with was the loss of a rental barge. I picked up the pace and made it back to my parking spot, relieved to see the Pimpster right where I left it. Looking back on it, the fact that it was a Pimpster is probably why it was still there. The key was left in the trunk's keyhole (no keyless entry on this bad boy barge), dangling for all to see. But no takers.

Clearly not at the top of my game, these events lead me to that lowest of lows: Sipping Dayquil at McDonald's the following morning.

The next couple days were more of the same. Certification by day, shots of Dayquil during the breaks, and blending into the campus scene in the evening. Well, sorta blending in. For most of the week, not even the drunkest of students could match my still bloodshot eyes.

TC