Some time last week,

The kid I am working with tries to give me the break down of gangs in America. I understand that he wishes he wasn't born in Caledonia and he really thinks he is telling me something, but I already know what he is telling me. The information he is giving me is 101 from any Discovery Channel show about gangs. It is nothing new or insightful. It is just a twenty two year old kid pretending he is something he is not. And not very good I might add.

To bring the conversation up to my level, I tell him how I am listening to a book on tape on my way to work called "A long way gone," the memoir of a child soldier Ishmael Beah. A twelve year old kid they gave brown brown, and an AK to. And how this combination is so deadly villagers flee their village from a rumor that a group of kids are coming, because in Sierra Leone in the early ninety's leaving your village because a gang of kids are coming is the most sensible thing to do.

My coworker just stares at me with his trademark deer-in-the-head-lights-look that I have come to learn is more than just an appearance of stupidity. I realize that this look is not from the information I have added to the conversation, but the fact that I have reveled I listen to books on tape on my way to work instead of a local Heckle and Jeckle two bit pseudo comedy show that is more typical of my proletariat comrades. He further lets me know he doesn't care about what I am say by adding something like, "Yeah those guys out west are... I don't know..."

He didn't even listen. I am working alone now not by choice, but loving every minute.