EricHiltner.com

I have a bit of a knack for holding completely random and useless conversations with random people.

Example:
Yesterday I went to Rural King with Colin. I needed batteries. We walk in, get some free pop corn, and procede to walk aimlessly around the store and catch up.
Finally it was decided that it was time to make a purchase so that we could go and get a beer at Marty’s.
After circumambulating the store, I had absolutely no clue where batteries were. They weren’t by the tools, and I did not want to get a 4-pack out of the impulse aisle, so I asked the girl working the cash register.

“Back behind sporting goods,” she said.
I walk hurriedly in search of some alkalines, and come to the desired location.
So many choices, and I decided to go frugal. Pairdeer offered me about a thousand AA for $9.99. The packaging was camo and I seem to recall a 10-point rack somewhere near the logo.
I grab Colin (who had gone in search of batteries in a different location of the store) and we head to the registers.

This is somewhat how the conversation went with the 17-year old girl who I will refer to as Audrey.
Editors note: Audrey was not her name, and came to the author at random.

Me: Thanks for the help finding the batteries. Pairdeed. I have never heard of this brand. Are they good?
Audrey: Umm. I don’t know.
Me: Do you not use batteries?
Audrey: Well, I don’t really buy batteries.
Me: Do you not use things that require batteries?
Audrey: No… I really don’t have anything that uses batteries.

(this is not a verbatim transcript, but my attempt to remember something that happened 25 hours ago and while still trying to shake to cobwebs of a loooong night of drinking Keystone and Dr. McGillicuddy’s until 7am)

What makes this conversation so amazing is the fact that both Colin and I were able to not lose our composure after getting this young girl to admit that she does not use a vibrator.
Once the transaction began, I started to talk to this girl, she bit hard, and I ran with it.

Colin and I erupted with laughter the moment we were outside of the store.
I murdered the story, sorry.

STORY TWO

So I decided that I needed some food to help me recover from the before-mentioned all-night-drining-binge.

I got my truck from the party locale and oulled into the drive-thru of the local McDonalds.
GnR’s “Sweet Child of Mine” was playing on the airwaves.
I placed my order and pulled up to the second window.
The window opens and I immediately ask the employee if she liked Guns and Roses.
She asked me to repeat what I said, and I do.
She says that she does while wearing a smile.
I say good and pull away after grabbing my food.

How can you not say that my butchered stories are rather awesome?
Happy now Jane?

For the past few weeks I have been down.
Usually all it would take for me to get out of it would be a good night of drinking with good company, and the next day I would wake up feeling like shit, yet like a million bucks.

Back in the day I would have Marco or my Black Knights to commiserate with, but these days both are gone.
Marco is working some horrible, dead-end job in Des Moines with the Associated Press, and there has yet to be a decent showing for a BKE meeting in a while.

See, Marco was my longest friend at EIU, and we understood the pressures of journalism and would often put down many pitchers of cheap beer talking away our daily stresses of working at the Daily Eastern News.

The Black Knights of the Embarras, the veterans group of which I try to run, has been less than stellar the past few months.
Our motto is “Serving those who serve.” None of that has happened in a very long time. No one shows up to meetings, the excuses are always something about work or school. Fine, I understand. But many of the members neither work or take their studies too seriously.
We keep trying to come up with fundraisers, yet no one seems to want to do anything but have bar crawls. FINE. I get it, we are MORE than allowed to drink our memories away as often as we would like. I love bar crawls, I love organizing them (and I am actually not too shabby at doing that) but our group is about more than that. It has to be.
I used to drink every night with a couple of them, and rarely see them anymore, at meetings or the bar.

But the lack of a Marco and seemingly impending implosion of the BKE is not what is bugging me these days.

I have recently decided that I will not be pursuing a job as a photojournalist. (Marco, you win.)
With the horrible economy, and monthly lay offs within the failing newspaper job market, it just does not seem like there is room for me.
I am not a great photojournalist. I am miserable actually. It is just not within me, and I am not sure it ever was.
I have taken some real pretty pictures, and that is all.  I have never been a Journalist while taking photos.
Taking photos on the sideline of a football game is great and all, and I love the sheer amount of people that I have met working as a photojournalist, but I really have been lying to myself for the past few years.

I just do not have the drive.
I quit.

What is funny about this decision is that I will be joining the ranks of both my brother and sister. Neither work in the field in which they studied.

So where do I go from here? What will I do?

I have a couple ideas of what to do when I graduate.

• move to North Dakota and work on an oil rig. I hear there are plenty of jobs for the taking our there.
• teach English in Korea. I absolutely loved when I lived in Korea, and I can speak some English.
• become a carpenter like jesus.
• move to the Yukon and become a hermit/trapper.

Any suggestions?