Lab Partner

This takes place last weekend, after class ended. Siya, the teacher, dismissed everyone, and the other eleven kids raced towards the door. I, per usual, had to pack up my bag. Rube, my lab partner, had already slung his backpack over his shoulder and started out.

"Ahh! Rube, wait for me," I called.

"Okay, okay."

I resumed packing my bag before glancing over my shoulder at him. His head was all of a foot behind me, and I, expecting him further back, promptly panicked. "Eeep! too close."

He moved over to my other side, granting me a few more inches of space. "Better?"

"Much." We walked out the door and down the hall to the elevator, following another sophomore whom I've never actually heard talk. Right when the doors started to close, we heard running footsteps and a yelled, "wait!"

Quiet boy reached for the *door open* button, but not fast enough. The door closed, and he said "Damnit," but entirely without passion, and resumed staring silently at the door. I found the entire situation hysterical and began giggling madly, falling back against the wall of the elevator.

We reached the bottom, got out, and kept talking. Rube made some relation of the situation to someone named Optimus Prime.

"Who's that? Did he invent prime numbers or something?" I asked.

"No," Rube said, looking at me concernedly.

"So he's a Roman emperor then?"

"No..."

I frowned. "I give up."

"It's a Transformer!"

"A what?"

"A robot in disguise. How do you not know the names of the transformers?"

"I didn't watch transformers. I watched Totally Spies."

"Totally Spies? How is that a show?"

"It's a bunch of girls who do spy stuff and go shopping."

"Well, that makes sense," Rube said sarcastically.

"It's not as if they make any more sense than transforming robots."

At this point, the guy who had missed the elevator caught up. He glared at us. "Douchebags."

"Um, sorry?" Before we could finish filling him in on the conversation, he broke off in another direction and my cell rang, playing Mozart. I answered it, unsurprised that Sean was on the other end.

Rube ignored the interruption. "Is that seriously your ringtone? Hah!"

"Shut up! No, Sean, not you! I can't hear you anyways. What?" I asked. Rube pulled a weird face. "Stop it! No, Sean, not you. We're by this big flag on a stick. It's like, really tall."

"Flaaaahhhg-pole" Rube said, exaggeratedly.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Yes, whatever, it's a flagpole. And there's, like this building."

"Liii-braar-yyy," Rube helpfully supplied.

"The library. No, not the actual library, the one that says it is but isn't."

"Viiiiisiiiiitooor's center"

"It's definitely not a visitors center! Wait, no, Sean, not you, I can't really hear right now-" Rube was laughing "-but I'll meet you at the fountains, okay? Okay, okay, bye."

Rube was in hysterics. "You didn't even let him respond. You're just like, 'Okay, okay, bye!'"

I shrugged. "He'll find me. Then I'll be stuck on a train with him for an hour." I gave my monologue about how annoyingly awkward the train rides always are, and by that point, we had walked past the fountain, over to one entrance, turned around and gone to the other entrance, when I said I really should go to the fountain, so Rube said "okay," and we both turned around and walked back towards it.

His response to my future awkwardness was to quote a Simpsons episode in which the family is seated with someone they don't particularly want to talk to. A basic transcript below:

*silence*

-I wonder what speed the fan is set at-

-wanna guess?-

-no-

*silence*

someone looks at the switch and says -it's on medium-

*silence*

-I would have guessed low-

-Well, you would have guessed wrong-

-oh-

*silence*

Then Sean showed up, Rube left, and we all lived happily ever after.