'American Philosophy' by William Mainous

On the 28^th day of January, I woke up that morning only to slowly drag myself out of bed, and get myself ready to face another, potentially, tiresome day. An unexpected chill sprinted though the air that morning or at least it fell unexpectedly for me. Suddenly, noticing the time, I began to hurry since the day had begun without me; I already was running late and my American Philosophy class would start in ten minutes so, I set about my way to the university. However, in my desperation to leave for school, I had forgotten to feed the dog. The cost of being absent to class, came with a loss of an attendance grade, the receiving of a zero on that day’s quiz and the missing of lecture notes. After, arriving at school, I began walking toward class but, stopping me was some demonic monster that appeared to me as some guy I knew from high school who I always considered to be an idiot. Anyway, he asked how I am I asked how he thought I was. I did an honest thing by telling him I was running late for class, and that I never liked him. Perhaps, it is cruel that I make such remarks but, if I had not told him those two things then, I would have been withholding some truths and that is just the same as lying. Also, it is unethical and frowned upon by most employers.

Fortunately, I got to class and took my seat just as the professor was beginning his lecture on William James’s famous essay, “The Will to Believe,” which was James’s paper of defending the right to adopt a religious faith. To myself I thought, of course the right to adopt a faith is acceptable, it is a freedom given to us by the U.S. Bill of Rights and during the lecture I did notice that James failed to mention that very important fact. However, despite my feeling toward James’s argument being irrelevant, still I saw it best to continue paying attention because, at some point later in the semester I might be held responsible for knowing this information, like on the mid-term or final. Unfortunately, a series of events unfolded that day, relentlessly pounded with distractions made it very difficult for me to concentrate. First, I couldn’t help noticing the professor was wearing an oddly looking tie.  It was a gray tie with maroon stripes running diagonally, across the solid gray and the thing seemed to be clashing with the rest of his furnishings. Secondly, some dude sat eating a pack of Skittles and entering my brain was the idea of wanting that, referring to the pack of Skittles I mean, and not to the dude so, I decided that I would buy a pack of Skittles after class. But, I soon panicked for I did not know where the closet vending machine could be found. Thirdly, and this was most frustrating of all, my sister sent me a text message about her watching Tom and Jerry and wrote “ha, ha” apparently, she thought it was funny that I had to go to school while she was busy watching TV. Then in some strange fit of passion, I decided that after class, I would not only buy Skittles but, I would also go home and watch cartoons.

Aside from the distractions, the reminder of class was peaceful and the part of the lecture that I managed to listen to was rather agreeable. Yet, I remembered I had forgotten to feed the dog so, when I got home, I fed the dog and sat next to him eating my Skittles, asking if he wants to watch cartoons or hear about my day. The dog said: “William, this is cat food!”