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Office Hours: The Rant, Part 1

I was standing at the window of my office, sipping my coffee. My back was exposed to potential assassins, but since it was still early in the semester, I wasn't particularly concerned.

"Professor — uh — Theopigis? Sorry to bother you —"

"Russell Esau." I turned around. "Come in."

"Hey, pretty good. You knew who I was without looking. Did you recognize my voice?"

"Not your voice, Russell. Your pronunciation."

"Huh?"

"It's Theophilus."

"Isn't that what I said?"

"Don't worry about it." I sat down. "What's on your mind?"

He took a seat. "Do you remember the last time we talked?"

Drily, I replied, "I think we've just established that I do." Unsure whether I was joking, he soldiered on.

"I need an advisor. Not, you know, an advisor advisor, someone who does an official degree check and tells you what courses you're missing and things. I just mean someone to advise me."

Peering over my glasses, I asked "About what?"

"Well, thanks to the complete and total irrationality and vengefulness of my parents, I might have to drop out and get a job."

When I raised an eyebrow, he continued. "Do you think I could work something out with my professors, so that I could stay in my courses even if I never came to class and skipped all the exams?"

"No."

"That's what I was afraid of."

"I take it that this came about suddenly?"

"What did?"

"Your situation. Whatever it is."

"It did come about suddenly. Up through last week I thought everything between me and my parents was fine. Friday was like, hello, Russell, how pleasant that you called. Monday was like, Russell who? Because of something that should have been nothing."

"I see," I said, though I didn't, quite.

Russell had been crumpling and uncrumpling a sheet of paper. Now he began tearing off little bits and throwing them in the trash. "I hope you don't get the impression that I'm bitter or anything, Prof."

"No, no."

"What makes it really weird and arbitrary," he gnashed, "is that they'd already paid my semester tuition. First they paid it, then they cut me off."

"Perhaps they can get a refund."

"That deadline's long gone. They already knew that it was. Which just goes to prove my point."

"Your point."

"That my parents are so determined to punish me that they're hurting themselves to do it. They don't even care that they're throwing away all that money."

While I waited for the other shoe to drop, he simmered.

"You're probably thinking that they're in some kind of money trouble, right?"

Since my thoughts had been running along somewhat different lines, I held my peace.

"Well, you're wrong," he answered himself. "They've got plenty of it."

"I see."

"Maybe not what I'd call plenty, but plenty for how they live. They just won't be rolling any more of it in my direction."

"But if your tuition is all paid up —"

"Then why do I have to drop out? In the first place, they've informed me that they won't pay tuition next semester."

"You're a senior, aren't you?"

"Right. And Spring would have been my last semester. Not now. Can you believe it? It just burns me up. But I was saying." He lurched out of his chair and paced the room. "What was I saying?"

"Oh, yeah. In the second place, they're cutting off living expenses. Not next semester. Now."

"I understand."

"So I have to drop out. What else can I do? We can't live without food and shelter. We can't buy groceries or pay rent unless we get regular jobs. We can't get regular jobs and still go to class. Part-time work-study jobs just won't cut it."

"Russell, my hearing is bad on one side, but it sounds like you're using the plural."

"I am. Sorry, I should have explained. That's what this is about. That's the nothing my parents think is something."

"Is it any of my business what something it is?"

"I'm telling you, aren't I? Besides, maybe you can tell me. You're in their generation. Maybe you can figure them out."

"Tell you what?"

"Why they don't see that it's nothing."

"If I figure it out, I'll be sure to tell you."

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it."

"The most extremely weird thing about it is that I know they would have seen that before."

"Before what?"

"Before they got religion."

"I thought you told me that your parents weren't particularly religious."

"That was then."

"If you don't mind my asking, what kind did they get?"

"I don't know. But they go to some new church now. Or is it a mosque? Is there a kind called Protestant? Or maybe Catholic. One of the two." He stalked around. "I think."

After another moment he added, "You'd laugh to hear them talk about it."

"Would I?"

"They sound like you now."

Passing the corner of my desk, he cracked his shin. That seemed to break his train of thought. For a moment he looked as though he were going to kick it. "Maybe I better sit down." He kept walking.

"Are you going to tell me why you were talking in plurals?"

"Huh?"

"Or what the nothing is?"

"The what?"

"The one that they think is a something."

"Oh. Yeah. Sylvia. We live together." After a moment he added, "They just found out."

"So I guessed."

"I figured you would."

"That's why they cut you off?"

"Yes. But it's nothing. What are you smiling about?"

"I was just wondering how Sylvia would take it if you told her that it was nothing."

Russell stopped in his tracks. "I never thought of that." Then he seemed to shake himself. "This isn't about her."

"Interesting perspective. Who is it about?"

"My parents. So what do you think?"

"About what?"

"Why are they doing this to me?"

"Have you asked them?"

"Yeah. But they just said it was wrong."

"What was?"

"Living with Sylvia."

"Then isn't that your answer?"

"No. I suppose I could have guessed that they'd think that it was wrong. Now that they've got religion. But what I want to know is, what's that got to do with me? Doesn't it count for anything that it's my life?"

"You've got a point."

"There. Even you agree with me."

"I didn't say that I agree. I said you've got a point. It's your life. But haven't you involved them in your life?"

"What do you mean?"

"What you mean when you say that it's your life is that they have nothing to do with it. But if you really believed that they have nothing to do with it, you wouldn't have let them support you in the first place. You would have been paying your own way through school."

"How would I do that?"

"You might work, save money, go to school for a while, then work some more. Or work and go to school part time. Or work part time, go to school full time, and take out loans."

"Nobody does that."

"Lots of people do."

"Are you saying that I should have done that?"

"No, not necessarily. I'm just pointing out that some do."

"But you said I had a point. You agreed that it's my life."

"We don't mean the same thing by that statement. When I agreed that it was your life, I meant that you bear moral responsibility for your choices, whether they're right or wrong."

"Well, I think that too. That's why my parents shouldn't butt in with their own moral judgments."

"You're being inconsistent. If you bear responsibility for your decisions, then don't your parents bear responsibility for their decisions?"

"I suppose."

"Then don't they bear responsibility for decisions that they make about you?"

"I don't get what you're saying."

"Think of it this way. If you're living in a way that's wrong, they're not to blame, you are. Right?"

"But I don't agree that the way I live is —"

"Never mind that right now; that's not the point. If you're living in a way that they consider wrong, they shouldn't blame themselves. Is that better?"

"Yes."

"But wait. If they do something to help you live in a way that they consider wrong, we're no longer talking about your decisions. We're talking about theirs."

"Ye-es."

"And we agreed that for their own decisions, they do bear responsibility."

"I don't like where this is going."

"At least we agree about where it's going. The conclusion follows from premises you agreed to; why shouldn't you agree to the conclusion?"

"All right, all right! But they're not helping me live how I live. They're just — aahhhhsisting with groceries and rent."

"Isn't assisting a word for helping?"

"I suppose."

"So from their point of view, they're not 'butting in' to your life with their own moral judgments. They're just trying to live their own lives according to their moral judgments. And one of their moral judgments is that they shouldn't subsidize wrong ways of life."

"I've already said that I don't think it is a wrong —"

"I'll rephrase it. That they shouldn't subsidize ways of life that they consider wrong. Otherwise, by their own standards, they themselves would be doing wrong. In that sense, it isn't about you."

"I see what you're saying. But it's all so stupid."

"Why?"

"So I'm living with a girl. Hello! People do it all the time. Am I some kind of pariah all of a sudden? Is this the flippin' twenty-first century, or isn't it? I mean, what's their problem?"

"Do you mean, why might a reasonable person consider nonmarital cohabitation wrong?"

Russell stared at me. His mouth opened and shut several times before he finally spoke.

"Prof, this isn't helping me. I don't even know why I brought it up. All I needed to know was whether I could get away with not coming to class, and you told me. I guess I got wound up. Please forget it."

"Sure."

"I'm sorry I bothered you."

"You haven't bothered me."

"Thanks. See you around."

He left.

I went back to work.

Twenty minutes later he was back.

"Professor Theophilus?"

I looked up. "So you can pronounce my name."

"I always could. Can I sit down?" I waved him in.

"I've changed my mind. I do want to know."

"To know what?"

"You said something about reasonable people. I've always thought my parents are reasonable people. So what I want to know is, why would it make a big deal to them if I live with a girl?"

C O F F E E  S H O P

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How would you be able to meet Russell's condition?

Join the discussion!

"You mean you want me to tell you what's wrong with it?"

"Yes. But only on one condition."

"What's the condition?"

"I don't want to hear about God."

CAN THEOPHILUS MEET RUSSELL'S CONDITION?