Adventures in Tutoring

1-on-1 tutoring is not the sort of activity that normally generates stories of the type that appear in this blog.  It does tend to generate lots of snippets that are worth making FB statuses about, and I've been trying to capture more of those moments that way.  But, here's a story from the trenches of being a tutor...

Spackalicious was in the midst of applying to colleges, and he'd developed a pattern whereby he was utterly incapable of moving the ball forward on his applications in any perceptible way unless he was in my office.  Although we almost always meet in Palo Alto, on this particular day I needed him to meet me at my office in the financial district of SF, since all my lessons before him were there.  My lesson after him was back at the beachhouse, and the lesson after *that* was via skype, so there wasn't a lot of give in my schedule.

Spackalicious being who he is ("Giving the finger to authority, man!"), he showed up nearly half an hour late, and after the usual warm-up banter, we finally got him started writing an application essay.  Given the time consumed by his lateness and the prerequisite banter, there was only enough time for us to have him create and spit-polish one essay before I had to send him home, so that I could get in the car and drive the 55-min commute back to the beachhouse.  Still, it was progress, and every bit of progress with Spackalicious is a hard-fought thing, not to be sniffed at.  I sent him down the elevator, and started get my things together to leave.

3 minutes later, my phone rang.  It was Spackalicious.

Spack: "Dude, I can't get out of the building!"

Me: "Do I have to do everything for you?  Walk out the front door and go home!"

Spack: "I can't get out the front door.  They won't let me leave.  There's like a bomb scare or something."

Me: "Wait... what?"

Spack: "DUDE THERE IS A BOMB SCARE AND MY CAR IS PARKED IN THE MIDDLE OF IT! HOW AM I GOING TO GET HOME?????"

(pause)

Me: "Wait there in the lobby.  I'm coming down."

So I headed down the elevator and found Spackalicious in the strangely-deserted lobby with Pat, the security guard who is super sweet but very terse, and has a habit of not smiling when you would expect it, and smiling (in a vaguely creepy crazy-person kind of way) when you would not expect it.  

Me (to Pat): "What's happening?"

Pat (smiling): "There's a bomb threat across the street.  You can't leave."

Sure enough, I can see police tape cordoning off the area, and right across the street, in front of the building where the action is happening, is Spackalicious's car.

Me (to Pat): "How long has this been going on?"

Pat (still smiling): "Over an hour now.  No telling when it will be over."

Me: "Is there any way out?  I gotta get this kid home."

Pat (stops smiling): "Well, they let a few people out of the loading dock earlier.  You could try that."

Me: "Awesome.  Thanks!"

So, with Spackalicious in tow, I head down the service elevator to the creepy basement of 505 Montgomery.  We wind our way around, and find the driveway that leads up to the loading dock.  The loading dock opens out onto the side road (Sacramento), around the corner from where the bomb threat is.  The loading dock door is open, and there is a motorcycle cop stationed right outside it.  We walk up to the door.

Cop: "You can't leave.  Get back inside."

Me: "Can we head that way?" I point in the direction away from the bomb threat.

Cop (pauses to consider this): "Yes, but you won't be able to come back."

Spack: "Dude, what am I going to DO if we go *that* way?  My car is over *there*!"  (points at the middle of the cordoned off area)

I considered it for a second, but my own backpack with my car keys was still upstairs in the office, so if we walked out the driveway now, we'd both be without a way to get home.

Me: "Come with me."

With that, we turned around and walked back into the bowels of 505 Montgomery, back to the elevator.  As we walked, I turned to Spackalicious and said:

Me: "Here's what's going to happen right now.  Life has given us some lemons.  So you know what we're going to do?"

Spack: "I know what you're going to say, and I'm going to punch you in the face when you say it."

Me: "What we're going to do is, I'm going to tell you to make us some lemonade, and your bitch ass is going to shut the fuck up and do it.  We should be able to get another essay or two done while they sort this out.  Meanwhile, I will call Jesse and tell him I can't make the lesson with him."

So, we headed back up to the office. At this point, it was about 7pm.  I called Jesse and told him our 730pm lesson wasn't going to happen because there was a bomb threat across the street, presumably because some fool forgot their backpack by the elevator or something.  Jesse was chill about it, and so I got Spackalicious started on the next essay, while I caught up on emails.

Time passed.

Around 815pm, Spackalicious finished the next essay.  My office, on the 11th floor, faces the exact opposite direction from all the hubbub, so I couldn't tell if the situation had been resolved or not.  I decided to go check.

Me: "Start the next essay.  I'll go see what the situation is."

Spack: "No way, man."

Me: "What do you mean, no way, man?  Just GET STARTED."

Spack: "I AM STARVING, MAN!  I NEED TO EAT FOOD NOW!  I'M NOT GOING TO BE ABLE TO FOCUS IF I DON'T EAT!"

Me: "omg, you are such a princess."

Spack: "Can we PLEASE get me some food?"

Me (pondering for a moment): "OK, well, if we go back down to the driveway, there's a Thai place whose door is literally like 20 feet down the block, away from the bomb zone, so maybe we can sweet-talk our way into getting into it, since it's all part of the same building structure anyway."

Spack: "YES please let's do that!"

So we went back down to the basement, around the bend, up the driveway, and came upon the loading dock, which was still open.  The motorcycle cop was still there.  I made my opening gambit- Chat The Bored Cop Up.

Me: "Wow, the situation is still going on, huh?"

Cop: "Yeah."

Me: "How long has it been going on?"

Cop: "About 3 hours now."

Me: "Wow."

Cop: "Bomb squad has been here a while, so I'm hoping it will be over soon."

Me: "Yeah.  Hey, listen, we've been stuck in here for several hours now with no food; is there any way we could just nip over to the Thai place right there (I point 20 feet down the street at the Thai place, whose door is flung wide open).  We'll move fast, grab the food, and nip right back here."

Cop: "Well, I don't know, I don't think-"

Me: "We'll be super fast and quiet.  Seriously, you won't even notice us.  But there's no food in here."

Cop: "Rolling his eyes.  Fine.  But *hurry it up*."

Me: "Yes sir!  Thank you sir!"

Spack: "Thank you sir!"

So we quickly motored up the block.  As soon as we stepped out onto the street, I could see that the side street was cordoned off up at Kearny, and so the whole block, including the Thai place, was within the quarantine zone.  We moved fast and ducked inside in the Thai place.  Which... was deserted.  I could hear a TV on in the back though.  After calling out hello, a waitress emerged.

Me: "We'd like to order some food."

Waitress: "You want to order food?"

(pause)

Me: "Um, yes, we'd like to order food.  Is that possible?"

Waitress: "Wait one minute."  (disappears into the back.  I hear a lot of jabber that I presume to be Thai.)

A few minutes later, she re-emerges, along with someone who looks like the cook.  He gives me a baleful look, and then goes over to the grill and starts firing it up.  If you're like me, you probably never would have thought it possible to fire up a grill sullenly, but I assure you, the cook fired up the grill in an impressively sullen way.

Waitress: "Here's a menu."

Me: "OK dude, what do you want?"

Spack: "What do you think I should get?"

Me: "What do you mean, what do *I* think you should get.  I don't know, what do you like?"

Spack: "I don't know.  We never eat Thai.  And I had that allergic reaction emergency last weekend up at Berkeley, and they think it might have been a reaction to nuts, and doesn't this food all have nuts in it?"

Me: "Dude, I don't know what you should eat.  Pick whatever."

Spackalicious: "DUDE I DON'T WANT TO DIE HAVING AN ALLERGIC REACTION TO SOME NUT LADEN DISH OF SOMETHING I DON'T UNDERSTAND.  CAN YOU PLEASE BE *HELPFUL*?????"

Me: (eye roll)

So, eventually we ordered some food that appeared to have a good shot at not killing Spackalicious, and we waited while they made it all from scratch.  Which, it must be said, took some time.

When the food was finally ready, we grabbed the bags and walked out the door, heading back toward the loading dock door.  About halfway back (remember, we were at most 50 feet from the door, the following things happened:

1) The loading dock door started to lower

2) The motorcycle cop standing by the door shouted "hurry up!"

3) Spack and I, toting our Thai food, started to run

4) The cops up at the end of the road started yelling something at us, which was unintelligible since we were paying attention to the motorcycle cop and were running and panicking that we might get shut out of the building.

Have you ever seen those nature videos that show the lion cubs coming across a baby gazelle, and at first the lion cubs are just chilled out, and the baby gazelle is nervous, but doesn't really know what to do at first, and then finally instinct starts to kick in, and the gazelle finally starts to run, except the running triggers the instincts in the lion cubs, and suddenly they turn murderous and hunt the baby gazelle down and kill it?  Have you seen that?  Because that's kind of what happened here.

Spack and I ran for the loading dock door, and arrived half a second too late; all we could have done was try some Indiana Jones type thing, except we had bags of food that we'd worked pretty hard for.  Approximately 0.1 seconds after we stopped at the loading dock door, we were suddenly surrounded by 6-8 cops, including one in the lead, who immediately started yelling at us.

Cop: "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?  YOU CAN'T BE HERE!!"

Me: "We were in this building, and just went over there to get foo-"

Cop: "DO YOU HEAR ME??? YOU CAN'T BE HERE!!  GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!"  (points up the block to the police tape cordoning off the area.)

Me: "But, we asked permissio-"  I point to the motorcycle cop.  This serves only to change the demeanor of the cop from "angry" to "apoplectic".

Cop: "I WILL ARREST YOU!  DO YOU HEAR ME?? I WILL ARREST YOU RIGHT NOW!"

Me: "But-"

COP: "I WILL ARREST YOU IF YOU DO NOT GET OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!"

Motorcycle cop was, of course, deliberately looking embarrassedly away.  So, Spack and I trudge back up the block, with a full police escort.  We are summarily deposited onto Kearney Ave.  It is about 9pm, and it's cold, and neither of us has a coat.  Since my backpack and keys are up in the office, neither Spack nor I now have a way home.  Spack and I find a place on the curb to sit, and I text my skype student to tell her no lesson is happening tonight, since even I can't tutor from the side of the road- at least not under these conditions.  I call Jill, who is at a work social event at a bowling alley in Pacifica, to brief her on the situation.

Me: "Hey, Jill... yeah, uh... there's a bomb scare, and Spack and I are sitting on the curb on Kearney ave.  His car is in the bomb zone, and my keys are in the office.  Which.. I can't get to because it's inside the bomb zone.  Uh, would you be able to pick me up later tonight?"

Jill: "Are you *kidding*?  I've been drinking beer all night.  There's no way I'm driving all the way up to the city.  You two are smart boys- you figure something out.  Call me later and let me know what's going on."

(hangs up)

Spack: "So, is she coming to get you?  Could I get a ride home?"

Me: "No, I'm stuck here with your lame ass, until either the bomb scare ends or we freeze to death."

Spack (smiling brightly): "Well, at least we have food!"

Me: "Yes... and remind me why are we going to die out here in the cold?  Oh right- because YOU had to have food!"

With that, I open up our bag of dinner, and examine the contents.

Me: "Well, I suppose it's consistent with how our night is going that they didn't give us any utensils."

So, Spack and I sat on the curb and ate now-lukewarm Thai food with our hands.  About 20 minutes later, the police took down the barricades.  The bomb scare was finally over.  Spack and I headed back into the building. On the way up the elevator to my office, Spack turned to me and said:

Spack: "Well, all in all, this was actually a pretty productive night.  Got a couple college essays done, you know?"

Me: (sigh)

Spack: "But you know what the whole experience taught me?"

Me: "I know what you're going to say, and I'm going to punch you in the face when you say it."

Spack: "Always check the takeout bag to make sure they gave you utensils."

Grrrr.