Jack
Losers I Have Known
Jack sat next to me in band in 7th grade, and was one of the other two tenor sax players. A bit on the bulky side, he always had a nice, tucked in shirt; hair that was gelled and tousled into big, brown, care-free locky curls; and those blue blue eyes that I swear to God you only ever see on stupid people -- so pale and watery as to be almost transparent, allowing one to look right through them as though they were glass and see that, yes, there is indeed nothing behind them.
Jack talked about farts. A lot. To him, farts were the pinnacle of comedic genius, which isn't so unusual among 7th grade boys, except that they were also apparently always, always on his mind. Hardly a rubber sole of some idle, bored foot could be rubbed against the floor by anoyher student without Jack, upon hearing the vaguely-fart-like-yet-obviously-not-a-fart sound, loudly asking "who beefed it?!" and giggling maniacally. (I still do not understand why "beefing it" is supposed to be slang for farting. I have never heard it from anyone other than Jack. His fart-synomym vocabulary was as extensive as it was perplexing. He once inquired as to who "blew chunks," which I had always assumed meant "to vomit," and still to this day shudder to think that farting, to him, was a function which apparently involved "chunks" being "blown" as a matter of course.) Spending an hour a day with him in a room full of students with tubas, trumpets, and other farty-sounding brass instruments was almost unbearable.
One day, Jack came to class and, making sure nobody was listening, said he wanted to show me something. He withdrew something from his pocket, real slow and sly-like. It was a folded up piece of college-ruled notebook paper with a plastic handle sticking out. He grabbed the handle and pulled it from the paper to reveal: a kitchen steak knife. It was then I realized that the folded paper was in fact a home-made sheath for this awesome weapon, which I should have realized sooner as Jack had written "JACK'S HELL-RAISER" on it in blue ink.
I don't recall a day going by where I did not want to punch him in the face.
Have you known a loser like Jack? Tell us about it! Send in a short (no more than 500 words) description to editors@thingsihate.org to see your words of anger right here in print.
Jack talked about farts. A lot. To him, farts were the pinnacle of comedic genius, which isn't so unusual among 7th grade boys, except that they were also apparently always, always on his mind. Hardly a rubber sole of some idle, bored foot could be rubbed against the floor by anoyher student without Jack, upon hearing the vaguely-fart-like-yet-obviously-not-a-fart sound, loudly asking "who beefed it?!" and giggling maniacally. (I still do not understand why "beefing it" is supposed to be slang for farting. I have never heard it from anyone other than Jack. His fart-synomym vocabulary was as extensive as it was perplexing. He once inquired as to who "blew chunks," which I had always assumed meant "to vomit," and still to this day shudder to think that farting, to him, was a function which apparently involved "chunks" being "blown" as a matter of course.) Spending an hour a day with him in a room full of students with tubas, trumpets, and other farty-sounding brass instruments was almost unbearable.
One day, Jack came to class and, making sure nobody was listening, said he wanted to show me something. He withdrew something from his pocket, real slow and sly-like. It was a folded up piece of college-ruled notebook paper with a plastic handle sticking out. He grabbed the handle and pulled it from the paper to reveal: a kitchen steak knife. It was then I realized that the folded paper was in fact a home-made sheath for this awesome weapon, which I should have realized sooner as Jack had written "JACK'S HELL-RAISER" on it in blue ink.
I don't recall a day going by where I did not want to punch him in the face.
Have you known a loser like Jack? Tell us about it! Send in a short (no more than 500 words) description to editors@thingsihate.org to see your words of anger right here in print.