By Lili Hun

I've got an orientation to go to at the MVA in a branch below southern Baltimore County. Since this was on the national working holiday of Halloween, some grown people are wearing headbands with animal ears or devil horns. How quaint. When I get to the room, only my confirmation of attendance seems to be missing from the list of attendees which is supposedly automatically generated when I confirm by email. Now I'm not a computer expert, but given what I do know, that seems like a black lie, no pun intended whatsoever. Can you really auto-generate from an email reply to a detailed spreadsheet? I don't think sooo! And, it's still my lucky day, because "There's always one person who cancels," so I get in like I should have in the first place if they had kept good records.

I quickly sit down at a table near the door, figuring I might want to have easy access to it when it's over. In sally two Russian women, chatting as they go to the back of the room, dressed with that unique slutty attention to fashion detail which I've seen from some Russian women before.

"What are they getting certified for?" I quip to the foreign guy next to me. He smiles. I lighten my jab and say, "I wasn't born here either." "Neither was I," he says. "I speak Hungarian, what language do you speak?" I ask. (I can get away with this with him, because he's not in the Liberal American PC Police Force. The acronym for it is LAPPF, with a sharp exhalation at the end of it and a go-figure expression on your face. Yep, it's mine.) "Arabic," he says with hardly a pause. I've asked that question of a person who clearly speaks something else and was only told English. Guess they got crap once for answering honestly. Guess he's not worried. Hell, he's gonna run this country soon. Why should he be? "I'm here for wholesale," he says, "You?" "Tag and title," I tell him.

At a quick glance, the room is filled with a mix of Russians (by language recognition), Latinos (by facial features), Arabs (by face or conversation), southeast Asians (also by face), Africans (by pleasing, undiluted facial features, dignified carriage, normal weight, and even a head dress), African Americans (with genetic inheritance from white daddy in the big house, often not a great mix), generic paleface Americans (not ethnically identified except as Heintz 57, which I've never even bought or tasted, so did I get the name right?), and a Yo couple (who are the sore thumbs in the room due to unbelievable questions, inattentiveness, and striking lack of learning habits).

The orientation starts, and as is typical of people who are not so articulate, they find a big word or two and pepper their presentation with it for effect (like "plethora" or "whole host of..." or "copacetic"). It has an effect on me; it annoys me to hear the repeated word, and I wonder what else they don't know that they should. However, there's a woman who presents later who is a black and Asian mix, who speaks well and has a very unusual name. Not a Dindu. Maybe she should be president instead of the current one. I doubt our statue of liberty would be saying, "Give me your tired, your poor, your Muslims," if she were. And the paleface lawyer who presents on legalities near the end, well, you would not want him on your investigation trail. Oh, and he's not even Jewish!

So during the lecture, Yoboy raises his hand and asks, "What if someone doesn't have their title [for their car]? Then what, you just have to throw the whole car out?!" Later he puts his girl up to asking the same question, only worded differently, "What if you lose the title?" Yoboy is going to a) open an honest business for himself, b) learn everything he can, or c) steal cars and sell them. They also talked throughout the class. When they got up to go pee together during the part of the lecture on legal aspects which they most needed to hear, I raised my eyebrows and smiled, "Look, now they're going to the bathroom together." The African American man who looks to be near my age says with a scowl, "Yeah, and they won't shut up." They were oblivious to any looks we shot them. Shooting them would have worked, however. One was stupider than the other, and they were both too stupid to know it. Imbeciles who couldn't even count up to their low IQ score because they didn't have enough fingers.

During the quiz game part at the end, the moderators ask a question about how many days you have to return certain paperwork. "A million," says an accented voice, fed up with the solid demonstrations of (Dindu) stupidity.

When it's time to rate the orientation, I write that it's a good presentation, but wouldn't they like to find a way to handle the chronic talkers, for their sake as well as ours?

We get in line to get our certificates of attendance. The two Russian chicks, obviously used to jumping in line, come up from the back of the room and stand to the other side of the African American man handing them out while the rest of us are in the single line we formed. As is appropriate for this kind of an infraction in his culture, he ignores them while they smile expectantly. But the slut suits always worked before...

Driving home from another errand, I see an electronic sign that says, "Third Annual Culturally Responsive Teaching Conference," at a local community college. Translation: The natives are out of control and the paleface teachers are wringing their hands and getting IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). The Dindu teachers don't really need this conference, though they may attend to fulfill an easy-for-them continuing education seminar requirement and for the freebie tables typically present, coming home with pens, magnets, lollipops and slogans that place the responsibility for Dindu student success squarely on the shoulders of the teacher. How 'bout that homework? You were trying to sleep on the couch while your mom was with that man you never saw before? I'm so sorry. You're excused from homework forever. Do you know what PTSD is? Just mention it whenever you screw something up or kill someone in the future.

I'm so glad I don't teach anymore. And while we're on the subject, there's another electronic sign at a local high school: Pride, Honor, Success. Really? With 30+ kids in a class? Most of them Dindus (In the city's past, they've been graduated without the necessary reading ability to fill out a job application form. Awww, that's okay, they still have Uncle Sam.) Same kids who mug, beat, stomp and jump folks for shits and giggles instead of doing homework? G-d, you're kidding me!

I, for one, would like to move to a safer place, but it's just not in the cards now. Maybe, G-d forbid, dying knowing that you're well-loved by friends and family will have to do. Have a day in Dindustan.

PS: If you're drop-dead bored, James also wrote about his MVA experience this past summer (tagged under Good Morning, Dindustan on August 11, titled Applying for My Slave Pass). You can use an old analytical technique called the Venn Diagram, renamed Compare and Contrast (probably someone's ED Doctoral thesis) to reflect upon our respective experiences, which little Dindus are taught here, and which to apply, you have to know something in the first place (Notice I didn't say learn, I said taught. It would be too great a leap to assume any learning, especially when you have to worry about the sounds your mother makes while you're trying to sleep. That would erase anyone's memory.) But as you can see, they are still preparing to use their minds, just for bigger and better things (like robbing, stealing, and killing... Ooh, did I really say that?). Yes. Oh yes I did.