Identities and Inequalities

📖 The Scoop

"I'm a regular visitor to the fitness center to my university's physical education building, which is open to people in the local community as well as people affiliated with the school. You can always find an interesting mixture of individuals there: professors, students, deans, administrative assistants, local artists, sheriffs, UPS truck drivers, insurance salespeople, restaurateurs, farmers, contractors, ministers, retirees, and so on. The locker-room conversation typically includes laments about the dismal play of local sports teams, complaints about the weather or the economy, and of course advice on every imaginable topic from the best way to strip old wallpaper to how to hit a nine-iron out of the rough. Some professors can always be counted on to grumble about lazy students, too many exams to grade, the puny size of our pay raises, and so on. To be honest, these topics bore me to tears. So I usually do more eavesdropping than talking. Every once in a while, though, someone will try to engage me in casual chitchat. Since I began writing the third edition of this book, I've had some version of this conversation a couple of times: Other person: So, David, how are your classes going? Me: Actually I'm not teaching right now. I'm on sabbatical. Other person: Sabbatical, huh? Must be nice, having a vacation, not having to work for months, and still getting paid! Me: [sounding annoyed] It's not a vacation! I work harder on sabbaticals than I do when I'm teaching. Other person: Sorry. Sorry. So what are you working on that's keeping you so busy? Me: I'm revising a book. Other person: Oh yeah? Impressive. What's it about? Me: Inequalities. I realize that such a one-word description is totally insufficient, but it's an effective way to squelch a conversation that I didn't want to have in the first place. And since I'm usually dressed in a towel or less when these exchanges take place, I want them to end as quickly as possible. Most people respond with unpersuasive expressions of interest ("Hmm, that sounds . . . um . . . nice."), sarcasm ("Fascinating! But if you don't mind, I'll wait for the movie version."), or vacant, deer-in-the-headlights stares. A couple of brave souls have plunged past this conversational dead end, though. A soybean farmer once said he didn't realize that I was a math teacher"--

Genre: History / Social History (fancy, right?)