The Lucky One

This weekend I went on a field trip to Death Valley. It paled in comparison to last year when the wildflowers were all over the place, but I got to see more of the park this time (and I certainly learned a lot of geology).

We rode out in two vans, and made stops at places in the park which had features we had talked about in class. I started the trip in the van that the TA was driving because I knew I'd get to ride shotgun, which is a big deal for someone as tall as me. It also happened to be the van with the most familiar faces in it (and by that, I mean people I have actually spoken with this semester). We got through most of the morning just fine, but then my professor started to get dizzy and asked me to drive (since I'm the only grad student in the class I'm the only one authorized to drive a university vehicle). He needed to stay in the 'lead' van to tell me where to go, so the guy who was riding shotgun in his van had to go back and take my place. We kept this arrangement for the rest of the day.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because the guy I traded places with happens to be really annoying. He's one of those guys who is constantly trying to impress people with how much he knows, even when it's obvious that he doesn't know what he's talking about. After he went to bed that night a few of the people in his van approached me.

"Are you going to ride in our van tomorrow? We need to get back to the original teams."
"Do you guys want me to ride in your van?"
"Yes. Please!"
"Ok, I'll tell him he has to trade me places again."
"Is that a promise? Can we get you to shake on that?"

The next morning I talked to the TA about riding with him again, and he said "Yes, hurry and get your ass in my van." Thus we got back to the 'original teams.'

About halfway through the day we all got out and started hiking up a hill so the professor could show us one of his points of interest. Some girls from the professor's van came up to me and said "You have to come back to our van. Please? We'll give you money." I didn't, but the pleading continued at every stop after that until we started heading home.

While I'd like to think it was because I was so cool, I know that any other person would have sufficed. I realize that I was the luckiest one on the trip, because of everyone in the class, I was the one who spent the least amount of time with Mr. Annoying simply because we were never in the same van.

It makes me wonder what exactly it takes for annoying people to start figuring out that they annoy everybody. I think this guy started to realize that something was up, but not enough to actually try to stop being annoying. Maybe it's just too much to ask of some people.