The Art of Being a Gentleman

CHAPTER TEN

'COULD YOU BE MAKING thousands while staying in the comfort of your own home? Online jobs have been life changing reality for people across the country in this economic downturn..."

David dropped the newspaper onto the table with a sigh. How did Ricky expect him to read this garbage? He didn't even like reading when it was about something exciting.

"Gentleman have thought provoking conversations," Ricky had explained at their last afterschool meeting. "Which means they actually use their brains and form opinions on current events and culture. So really, this is a two part assignment. You need to read up on what's going on in the world, and then have something genuinely interesting to say about it."

"I feel like what you think is interesting and what I think is interesting are two very different things."

"Fine. Let me rephrase. Come up with something that someone with a maturity level higher than two would find interesting."

"Wow. Hurtful."

"Come on, you know I'm kidding," Ricky laughed. "As usual, 'What Would Ricky Do' should be your standard. Go for things like economics, politics, or current events... normal stuff that Alyssa's parents will talk to you about. To be able to impress them, you'll need to come up with an intelligent answer."

"I'm in high school, they're not going to ask me those kind of things."

Ricky frowned and seemed to stop himself from saying something. After a silent conversation with himself, he said instead, "What about thoughts on happenings in your school? Administration is choosing to take money away from other extra-curriculars and put the money into sports. What do you think about that?"

"I don't care," David shrugged, knowing he was being difficult but doing it anyway. "Unless they're using the money to make a baseball team. Wait. Are we getting a baseball team!?"

"No."

"Yeah, then I don't care."

"But they are threatening to shut down the Environmental Club..."

"So? None of that affects me. I'm not in any of those clubs."

"Maybe," Ricky smiled, "but Alyssa is."

...So David decided to read the newspaper to form opinions about things that mattered.

Well actually, Ricky had ordered that he read the newspaper and then report back to him. David agreed easily, happily even, until Ricky read his mind and burst his bubble before it could even properly form. "The comics and sports section don't count."

...So David was reading the boring parts of the newspaper to form opinions about things that mattered. To somebody. Somewhere. Probably.

Reaching over and grabbing his chewed pencil that was whittled down to almost nothing, he scribbled down: 'Online jobs = good. Economy = downturned'. This was written underneath other brilliant opinion notes like: 'People should eat less avocado' and 'Why is the government just passively watching cat café's happen?'

As much as David wanted to prepare himself for the conversations he would have with Alyssa's parents, (because who knew? What if he married the girl and he'd have to stock up on intelligent opinions for the rest of his life?) he couldn't bring himself to read one more line of single-spaced garbage.