my homework

transcription of 3-5 min conversation.

I hold up the recorder silently as Adam walks in.

A: what is that?
J: for class.
A: what do you mean?
J: my orality class.
A: what's an orality class?
J: a class about orality and speaking and communicating...
A: between two people?
J: Yep. Well, yeah.
A: what about a conversation in your head?
J: laughs. Well, conversations...in your head?
A: Like when you're talking to yourself.
J: Well, I guess it depends on if you do it out loud or not.
A: if it comes out your mouth, it's oral?
J: Yeah. It's about, like, different ways of communicating and how they've changed, like the internet...and even writing itself is a fairly new invention--
A: Yeah
J: --considering how long humans have been around.
A: Yeah.
3 second pause
A: There's never any room for anything in your fridge other than a buncha crap.
J: I just threw a buncha stuff out, too. We had about five jars of pickles...
A: It looks cleaner than it did, but...
J: We had about five jars of pickles and none of us eat pickles so we figured out that those must be Crissy's and finally threw them away.
A: I would've eaten 'em.
J: Oh. Well. laughs shit.
A: Since my last name is Klawson....big pickle fan. Since me and my dad make pickles.
J: How do you make a pickle?
A: Pretty easy, you take a cucumber and you clean it...
J: --holy shit.
A: what?
J: I have to buy more toner for my printer and that's how much it costs. Ah, that's for a two-pack I guess.
A: You should talk to Rudy.
J: why is that?
A: Because he could go through our work and get it way cheaper I think.
J: it's $65 for one. That's how much I print out. I burned through a whole thing in a semester.
A: What kinda printer is it?
J: It's a laser Dell 1100.
A: I'd talk to Rudy before you buy anything. Because he...
J: Does he know how to put them in?
A: I could probably put it in. You should be able to put it in, you know?
J: laughs That reminds me...
A: What's up, lame girl?! laughing and shaking my knee condescendingly.
J: you wanna fix my sink? Or not my sink, but my faucet dealie. smacks him on the leg.
A: yeah.
J: you okay?
A: today was a shitty ass day. Because the bank denied my loan.
J: Aw, I'm sorry.
A: laugh I wish it was back in the days where you actually had to go present yourself to a loan officer because...cracks beer all they do is put your name in a system and it's based on pretty much your credit score.
J: yeah.
A: nothing about you as a person...
J: right.
A: ...nothing about what you're going to do with the loan...you know, it's just, it's such a crock of shit.
J: mhmm.
A: so, that kinda bummed me out, that was the first thing this morning that happened. And I talked to David n sighs he's...alright. Says his day consists of job searching...
J: yeah...
A: and then, playing Nintendo.
J: laughs At least he's job searching.

pause

A: what time do we have to go?
J: uhhhhh, we should probably go now...or soon. both laugh at the weird antics of the cat.
J: Oh, and I was thinking, do you wanna go over to Common Interest after the movie? I told Dana we might meet her up there.
A: Possibly.
J: Do you have to work in the morning?
A: Yeah.
J: Me too.
A: I mean, I don't have to work, but I'm going to do a sidejob for Ann's sister, work on her car.
J: I have to turn in my insurance stuff when we go over there...Did I tell you we get a 401K at the Alamo? from the kitchen
A: Yeah, you had...you had mentioned that. Is that all the shit?
J: Some of the shit...
A: I filed my taxes today.
J: Oh yeah? already?
A: Yup.
J: Good job.
A: and uh...
J: how much did you get back?
A: well, here's the fuckin kicker--
J: did you have to pay out?
A: No, the first time I ever done it electronically, online?
J: Yeah?
A: ...usually I just send it to my dad...I mean, cause he's got an accoutant.
J: uh huh...
A: and since Texas doesn't have state tax, it's all federal...so that's what I did last year, but this year I just did the HR Block online deal?
J: mmhmm.
A: And the first form tells you about your retirement plan?
J: Yeah.
A: and there's honestly 26 different possibilities of what it could be, all marked by a letter?
J: uh huh.
A: And I didn't know, but the words are the same. So it's marked by a letter but it said pretty much basically the same thing for every situation except slightly different.
J: uh huh.
A: And I didn't notice the letter next to my thing on my W2, so I just put in A because I figured that what everybody's plan was, or that's what my plan was. And it said I owed the government, like, $3600.
J: oh shit.
A: so then I went through the whole thing again and said, "aw, I should switch that to a D" and of course, you can see the amount change at the top--
J: --yeah, yeah knowing what he's talking about
A: and it went from, it went from "owed" to "refund," I'm getting $2500 back.
J: Nice.
A: so I'm pretty happy. And I bowled the two best games of my life last night. At league, with Julian and Rudy and me and another guy, I bowled a 225 and a 216.
J: You're fucking good.

Adam looks at the forms for my 401K and sees it's not all filled out yet.
A: You don't know your parents' address?
J: No, I don't know my mom's social security number.
A: You don't need it.

more chatter about 401Ks and tax refunds til it's zero hour for leaving to see Smokin' Aces on time. I reach up for the recorder.

J: Did you know I was recording that whole conversation?
A: mhmm. I mean, I saw you hold it up and hit record, so I figured....