One of my favorite things about being the only person on my campus without an iPod is that I get to listen, unbidden, to other people’s conversations. I love to eavesdrop. I started as a kid, covertly making myself privy to my parents’ “private” conversations, and once I discovered the joy of possessing classified information, I never looked back.

Most of the conversations I overhear between classes are forgettable. No Top Secrets are exchanged, and most people don’t say anything funny or useful. Yesterday, however, I was reading a book in the Quad when two men wearing Vote Ron Paul t-shirts were suddenly beside me, sharing a cigarette and exchanging the following dialogue. The conversation was already in full rant-mode by the time they were close enough for me to hear them.

Man: … and Dude, like what’s UP with them all having like 2 divorces and 3 kids and shit? I’m like, fuck!

Dude: Huh?

Man: Dude! All I’m sayin’ is how come all the girls in our age group have been like, fucking divorced a couple times and they all got like, a couple fucking kids from different dads and shit! Shit! And then they’re all like, (in falsetto, apparently mimicking a female denizen of his so-called “age group”) ‘I just need one more to be complete.’

Dude: (chuckles)

Man: I’m like, fuck! What are you, like some kind of incomplete fucking idiot?

Dude: Yeah, Man.

Man: Dude, I know what I’m gonna do. When I turn forty-five, I’m gonna fucking marry some chick from the internet who’s like eighteen or nineteen. From Sweden.

Dude: Good luck.

Man: Oh! Duuuude! My fucking 20-year reunion is coming up! I gotta find out which chicks got the hottest daughters! Then I’ll be all like, ‘Oh yeah, you wouldn’t look at me in high school, but your fucking daughter wants my essence!’ Yeah, Dude.

I recognized these individuals as two of the people who have been zealously, even ferociously, campaigning in the Quad every day for Ron Paul since the start of the semester. What made their conversation particularly hilarious was that both Dude and Man were in their late thirties to early forties, which would disqualify any women in their “age group” from being classified as “girls” – no matter how liberal the definition. As you might have surmised, these two gentlemen were not exactly what any woman (or girl) would consider to be a “great catch”, no matter how many divorces or children she might have, or how Swedish she happens to be. I didn’t get a good look either of them, but it was the misogynist tirade, not their appearances that made me a little queasy. Even though Man’s Ron Paul shirt was too small, and the wind repeatedly ruffled his comb-over while simultaneously lifting the hem of his shirt to expose a relaxed and generous stomach pouch approximately the color of congealed oatmeal, all that could have been forgiven if he wasn’t so revoltingly hateful! He was sort-of like Homer Simpson, if Homer Simpson had never been married (or even had sex) and was on some kind of political bandwagon.

Ladies with high school age daughters – watch out. This guy might have gone to your school. Though your daughters presumably have the instinctual discretion and good taste to avoid this guy’s toxic “essence”, he hates you. Even though you probably don’t remember him, he hates you. And tell your high school aged girls to be nice to everyone, even the creepy guys with dandruff and acne who doodle mutant warriors on their notebooks.

I felt a little bad for “Man”, even though he was being so nasty. He had obviously been served daily heaps of steaming rejection for years. He reminded me of a grown-up version of that kind of kid who takes guns to school. Kids don’t go to school with guns in their backpacks because everyone is so darn nice to them.

I should have given him a hug or something, but I’m married and he might have gotten the wrong idea. I hope someone hugs him, though.

Ron Paul, if you’re reading this, you should give that guy a hug. He really likes you.