paperninja.net

Yet he’s about as Mexican as Colonel Sanders.

The other members of The Hub knew Gabe as well. Gabe had problems. The first little scheme of his that I learned about involved his creating a counterfeit UH parking decal. He was busted fairly quickly, receiving a ticket for his troubles. We imagined him rubbing his fingers together, sprinkling glitter over a crude cutout in order to simulate the real parking decal sheen. Rubbing one’s fingers together became a reference to Gabe and he acquired the nickname Glitterboy.

Poor workmanship was his staple. He was a Graphics major, and everything he turned in was at least a week late and looked as though it had been thrown together a few minutes before class. In some cases it actually had. He repeatedly tried to get into Graphics Block, the upper-level courses that required portfolio submission. He might have some kind of record for consecutive failures.

He ruined the driveway of The Hub by spray painting one of his cutouts and forgetting to put something under it. He stole an entire shelf from the Psychology building once. Not limited to big things, he also filched smaller objects, like trays from Burger King. I don’t even know why. Just to.

I went to work in the printmaking lab one night and found him and a few others there. I knew it was trouble because the front door was propped open with a case of beer. By the time I left he had constructed a beer can bong and was using the lab’s ventilation fan to hide the odor. That was about the last time I saw him, fortunately.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 8:44 pm and is filed under People I Know. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response.