When I was in first grade, I learned what every kid that age learns about teachers. Despite the fact that you never see your teachers outside school, they don't actually live there. It never occurred to me, or most other kids, that there was no bed in the teacher's classroom. All I knew was that the teacher was there in the morning when I arrived, and stayed even after I had left. So of course I assumed my teacher lived at school. It sure came as a shocker to me to find out that my teacher lived in a house, and perhaps was even married and had a family. My whole world concept was thrown out of whack the second I learned this fact.

Fortunately, I managed to survive, and am happy to report that I am just fine. In fact, I even made it to college, where I remain today.

Much time has passed since first grade, and that lesson I have retained everything I learned about people that year. I never again thought that the cashiers at the local grocery lived there. For the most part, other people seemed to also understand this to be true.

Notice that I say "for the most part." You see, I never in my wildest dreams imagined that any person over six years of age would actually ever question what I do as a person. But I have been proven wrong.

College life is social, and I've met a lot of people. I have many classmates, and I enjoy studying and occasionally socializing with some of them. But I have been noticing, lately, that many people I know who I run into around town ask me the most staggering questions.

Keep in mind that these people are quite intelligent. Put them in a science class and they'll ask questions such as "if you cross benzine with hydrochloric acid, does the polarity actually shift?" If you're a chemist or scientist, don't answer this question.

But my point is, people in college are overall pretty smart people. However, quite a few of them are seriously lacking common sense. I'll provide an example. I was at work yesterday, and I ran into a guy I know from school. He's a graduate student. When I saw him and said hey, I got a very unique response: "What are you doing here?" I was wearing a company shirt and had a nametag on, so I felt it was fairly obvious what I was doing.

In any event, I could forgive the silly question. We're between semesters, and it's okay to take a brain break. But what got me was the guy's facial expression. He looked at me as if to say: "You're a college student, why are you working at this store?"

I didn't have the heart to actually answer that either the explicit or the implied question. Hopefully he'll figure it out eventually, the fact that I in fact do not spend all my time on campus, I live in a house, and I work so that I may make money in order to help fund my education.

This, however, is not an isolated event. I've had quite a few people I know come in and ask me the same thing. I think in the future, I'll just shake my head at people who ask me this. That'll leave them wondering.