Ever have helping people work out, Suu?

[Richter]

It's depressing, most of the time, you just watch them fail; horribly, and not even have the mood to say "I told you so."

If there's one refinement Mad Science can offer us, it's professional detachment.  Sure, you may have missed the moon and only carved your name in the skulls of 20 VERY surprised orphans, but in the name of science, and the greater achievement and advancement of all, you carry on.  As they say, we are professionals and all.  Can't let little setbacks get us down.

This detachment works too.  I'm sure I told you about that time on the train.  For those who I haven't, the commuter train from Boston to my old, old digs in Worcester is NOT a quick, straight line affair.  After a work day, followed by an hour and a half on this train, the LAST thing you want is to slow down. 

So this one afternoon I'm waiting out the last few stops, winding through suburbia, when the worst thing happens.  Three boys, excited by prospect of a trip into the (not so big) city, bouncing around talking and giggling, get on the fucking train two stops before mine.  These are the kind that don't laugh as much as they pre-pubescent squeak in glee.  Turning up the music does nothing, so I abandon my seat and go to wait by the door.  I prop myself up in one of the seats there, and wait. 

Well, the DUMB rarely lets us rest in peace.  These three decide to join me in the vestibule, giving voice to how they're JUST going by their friend's house, and ought to jump out to get there faster.  They line up at the door like the fucking Jamaican junior bobsled team, and start heaving back and forth, gathering momentum for the jump. 

I'm about to watch this happen. 
They make splatter!  Rah Rah St. Darwin!

They'll stop the train though, when it happens, and despite the nothing to be done, we'll be stuck there until the meat wagon arrives to collect the fresh ground teenburger.  Fuck.  Guess I have to do something.

Mad Psychology, Suu.  Youth HATES authority.  Train conductors or "You better not do that." is going to be useless here.

I pull out one ear bud, and turning to them as little as possible, "I'll feel bad later if I don't tell you; this speed is enough to kill you."

"SEE! SEE! I TOOLD YOU!", as the hindmost thinks better and sits down.  Given pause, but soon resuming their momentum, the other two still seem keen on jumping.  They start their bobsled routine again.  Always problems...

"We'll be at the station in five minutes.  It's not worth your ass." I tell them.

Number two sits down.

If we follow Vinnie Jones's theory, our head dick is now robbed of his two balls.  No longer backed up, he sits down.  The train ride finishes in peace, and they go off on there way.  Can't say if anything has happened to them since.  They went a block and met Goddot for all I know.  Walk on extras in my life, back into the ether. 

Maybe it was noble, maybe it was self interest, and maybe I was just seeing if it would work.  Maybe they never would have jumped.  I don't get to know, but for a usually boring stretch of time, it certainly was a worthwhile experiment.     

[Suu]

Remember the time we got shitfaced at Hong Kong at Faneuil Hall, Richter?

I had to take the train home then too. I staggered back to South Station with 4 minutes to catch the Providence Local, an hour and 10 minutes of my life I wasted twice a day, pulled out my pass, and prayed I wouldn't throw up. The train ride ended up feeling like only 20 minutes, and the last thing I clearly remember about that night was hanging from the open vestibule between South Attleboro and Providence, most likely in fear of vomiting, feeling the cool August air on my face as we traveled at 85/mph over the Blackstone River. To this day I don't know how I remained hanging on.

But where was someone to help me? No one was there to tell me this was a bad idea, to tell me if I fell out that I would plummet to my death and it would be splattered across the 11 o'clock news and probably the 6am if I was lucky. There was no conductor or good Samaritan nearby to stop me, just my drunk self with a big Nine West city bag in one hand and a thin metal rail in the other, but someone how I still came to my senses and realized this was a bad idea.

I do remember those days at the Bank though, telling unsuspecting mothers at the bank about my own student loan horrors with SLMA and selling them our products instead. But was that helping? Or making it worse? I took them away from a huge corporation that aimed at sucking money out of the young college grads of our nation and instead locked them into an agreement in which they would pay US the money. The Bank. Our salary makers, who now don't seem to have that loan department anymore. The big corporation still exists. Those mothers, probably hate me now, knowing that in the end they have to go back to Sallie Mae, and now have private loans scattered between lenders trying to make ends meet for their child to attend school.

Sometimes no matter what you do to help, people are always screwed in the end. Even if you don't do it on purpose.

[Richter]

Sometimes we have to be our own help, Suu.  We are not the mass production humanity here.  Emergency response will WEEP when they realize we get ourselves into twists that the jaws of life cannot undo.  This is the fate of the high powered mutants of ANY age. 

Lesser weevils.  We told them straight up what to expect, and if anything your horror stories were a wakeup that loans are NOT FREE MONEY.

What do you really tell those people, though?  Prices are inflated, advisors are crooked, and terms are obtuse, but it was the only game in town.  They signed the ticket, got the ride.  I know folks who are makign it by OK with them, I know some who are jsut barely hanging on, and I know folks who are up to their eyeballs in shit.  Would it have been any better to tell them to abandon their pursuit of education way back when?

How many thousands of the loan went to their car?  To the SCUBA kit for the one class they took?   

Remember Dave?  High energy, pure BASTARD, but he played a fair game.  Nothing left his desk with an OK, and he straight up told people, "You CAN'T use a loan for THAT."  He expected money back, and knew a good repayment record was worth more than a charge off.  He'd tell you that too, he'd take 5 outside for a smoke with you and explain what you do and don't do with credit.  That was an example worth seeing.

[Suu]

I told plenty of people how to spend their money wisely. School loans were for SCHOOL. For classes, books, housing and meals. Not a car because your daughter didn't want to live on campus. The loan gets sent to the school, not the parent or especially the student.

Selling money isn't all what it's cracked up to be.

[BabylonHoruv]

Ahh, but how do you help someone you don't even know?  Well, you give him some money.  It's easy.

loans, free money?  well, they are to the lender.