Thinking of “book larnin’”, I had a memorable encounter with Urbanredneck in a thread a couple of years ago where I mentioned that I worked in academia. He immediately asked me how many students “[do] something of a sexual nature to pay for college” and started reminiscing about nude models he’d supposedly known in school. This was probably the most inappropriate question I’ve ever been asked about my work and it was also only tenuously related to the thread (a Skald hypothetical about a woman who learns a wealthy friend was secretly paying for her college education), but I said “How should I know?” and figured that would be the end of it.
But he would not let it go, and kept going on in a rather…fervid…manner about how he was sure it was common for college students to prostitute themselves or appear in pornography. I finally told him quite bluntly that this was creepy and that I was not interested in providing him with wank material, to which he replied:
I forgot to mention that this all happened right after I had offered Urbanredneck my advice as a university librarian in a thread he started about helping his son with academic writing. So one day I’m telling him that professors really do care about properly formatted citations and that if his son plans to go to college then learning MLA is important, and literally the next day he starts badgering me about how many of my students are sex trade workers.
This experience convinced me that Urbanredneck isn’t just an idiot, he’s an idiot and a jerk. I hope that there is someone in his son’s life who is serving as a good role model for appropriate behavior, because he’s obviously not going to learn it from dear ol’ dad.