WHAT ABOUT BOB?

Author: Bob Wainwright

Hey everybody. I hope you all had an incredible J-term, and for those readers of The Campus who happen to live in the real world, perhaps you can take solace in the fact that our month of watching movies and skiing is officially over. Meaning, if we were still to do those things we'd have to cut back on something else, like our work, but that would never happen… at least until the third season of "The Sopranos" comes out on DVD.

As for me, I have finally returned from Australia. As some of you might know, I've actually been back in the States for two months already, but realistically, it's only been a few days. Now I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I've been using my Aboriginal didgeridoo for something other than making interesting guttural noises. But that is not the case. The reason I only returned a few days ago is that it's taken me an entire two months to fully readjust to your American way of life.

Let's remember here that Australia is not exactly our next-door neighbor, and even in this new information age, the Aussies tend to be a little behind the times when it comes to pop culture. As is the case with most things in this world, with the inexplicable exception of quantum physics, it took me a while to figure out that, due to associative property, I also am out of touch with what's popular.

For instance, I came back to America throwing out the phrase "You are the weakest link!" as much as possible, only to have people stare at me as though I were some sort of oddball. And that's not all. Apparently, my all-time favorite "Whassssup!" isn't cool anymore. As a former friend of mine so rudely stated following my Budweiser-influenced greeting, "Why don't you just vote me off the island while you're at it, Bob. Gee wiz, ever since you got back from that country with all those marsupials, you're just so out of it."

Although his comment was irritating, he was absolutely right. After being gone for six months, nothing I did in America seemed to make any sense. Even telling people, "My dad is a top executive at Enron," was eliciting strange responses.

Being a New Yorker, my return from the most laid-back city in the world was made that much harder. Whenever I left my apartment, honking cars would have me waving in their direction. Not to mention the fact that I looked the wrong way at pretty much every crosswalk until the time that I, well, shall we say, "didn't" help an elderly blind woman cross the street.

But the weirdest problem of all was that I had forgotten to always ride in the backseat of taxicabs in New York. In Sydney, it is a true insult to sit in the backseat of a cab, a phenomenon that no doubt stems from Aussies' uneasiness with their convict origins, but I won't get started on that. The point of the story is that the first time I jumped into the front of a New York cab, the poor man behind the wheel thought he was being mugged.

Of course, when I then proceeded to smile, he assumed I was hitting on him. "Backseat díve má cesta hnv bt patn od aludku dále tebe!" he screamed at me. Let me tell you, I didn't take Czech for three years in high school in order to stick around dumbfounded after such an insulting tirade.

Now, of course, one might think that a return to Middlebury in January would ease my reintegration into American society. I mean, how much does Middlebury change over the course of a semester, anyhow?

But think again! Nobody told me Proctor now has a Panini machine. How was I supposed to react to that? As if returning to the lunch hustle after not seeing anyone from Middlebury (except for one kid whose name I've forgotten) weren't stressful enough, I have to deal with the added pressure of knowing that there is this incredible machine next to the toasters that can make an ordinary sandwich simply miraculous and yet have no idea how exactly to make it work. It's enough to make any man revert to run-on sentences.

Of course, I now know how the Panini machine works. After studying countless students deftly creating mouth-watering masterpieces, I eventually gathered up the courage to attempt it myself. And following several unfortunate experiences with some burnt toast, I finally succeeded in creating a delicious ham and cheese sandwich on white. Now, that was a few days ago, the day before I left for break. And since the Panini machine and I had developed such a strange relationship in the preceding four weeks, it was at that moment, when I removed the hot, melted Panini off the scalding plate, that I realized my entire being had finally…(I'm getting a little choked up here) come home.