Enslaved By The Bell

In the middle of studying about the lipopolysaccharide receptor recognition of dendritic cells in our immune system, I suddenly had the urge to watch an episode of Saved By The Bell. I needed something exciting and thought that seeing Zack Morris's face one more time would cause a big enough of an adrenaline dump to keep me coasting for the rest of the night. (I would've said A.C. Slater but his hair always scared me.)

So I'm sitting in the school cafeteria, watching the classic episode where Jessie gets addicted to caffeine pills, when some random guy just comes and sits right next to me. In the practically empty cafeteria room. For a minute, I felt sorry for the lad. I mean, he clearly just wanted to watch some classic TV shows on YouTube and I assumed that he didn't even own a laptop, so I let him enjoy the remainder of the episode on my luxurious 13 inch screen.

After the episode was over, trying to maintain my friendliess, I turn to him and am like "Isn't this episode a classic? Jessie is soo annoying!" He just sat there with a blank look on his face. "Yea, I guess," he said. Ok, I thought. "Wasn't it so cool that Zack and Kelly got together at the end?!," trying to take another stab at it. "Yea..." Then he confessed. "Actually I've never even seen this show before."

I don't know what is creepier: randomly sitting inside the bounds of a stranger's comfort zone in an otherwise empty room or not knowing what Saved By The Bell is. For me, the two compounded each other. I packed up my laptop and moved my things across the room, leaving him there wallowing in the pity that is a Zack Morris-free world.