The Disgruntled Intellectual

Two stories in one day! Amazing, too bad they both kinda suck.....


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The Disgruntled Intellectual


“I was an english major.” said the disgruntled intellectual.
“Are you going back for a Masters?” said the optimistic scholar.
“No.”
“So no future in academia?”
“No, no, no. My professors warned me about that.” The disgruntled intellectual jerks back, seemingly offended by the question.
“Do you have job?”
“Yes.” The disgruntled intellectual takes a deep drag of his cigarette. Exhales. “I make more then my mother.”
The optimistic scholar is no longer so optimistic.  “What do you do?”
“I’m a bartender at the Bistro.” Silence. “I make two hundred a night in tips.” Silence. “It’s less then the waiters, but i make eight an hour. They make four.”
The optimistic scholar opens his mouth but no words come out. A few moments pass. “Are you trying to become a writer?”
“No.”
“So much for the degree.” The optimistic scholar leans back on his perch, laughing nervously.“I mean what are you supposed to do with a degree in English? Be a miserable wannabe writer? Go through the tormenting hell of another five years of school to continue the bullshit cycle of professordom? I won’t do it. I can talk to any patron at the bar for hours on the intricacies of the modern language or the talking points in Jean-Francois Lyotard’s Postmodern Condition, but beyond that the degree is worthless.
“I went to an Ivy. I clashed egos with some of the brightest people in this country. I’ve read countless volumes of literature whose origins span the globe and encompass every era of human history. I’ve written page after page breaking down these volumes of literature from transcendent themes to their minute details. But, in the end. All that I learned, was that everything that comes out of anyone’s mouth is bullshit.” The disgruntled intellectual takes a deep breath. The action is then repeated, but with the cigarette at his lips.  Exhale.
“So that’s it,” says the optimistic scholar. “Bartending.”
“Afraid so.”
The next few moments are spent in anxious silence, the optimistic scholar and the disgruntled intellectual each smoking their cigarettes. The optimistic scholar could think of nothing else to say. The disgruntled intellectual had nothing left to say.
After he finished his cigarette, the disgruntled intellectual stood up, bid farewell, and disappeared into the dark.


The End.  I Need a Beer


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