Zenitude

I am taking a zen meditation class. A peculiar social experience where once a week some very crunchy white folks come together and do nothing. The objective is to quite simply look down at the floor while sitting with your legs folded, counting your breaths up to 10 and then restarting from 1. Your not suppose to "force" your breathing, an instruction I found bloody well impossible no matter how many times the facilitator said otherwise.
Although this may seem very relaxing, the reality of the situation is that you become hyper conscious of sounds, especially the ones you contribute to the group meditation. I found myself unable to swallow because every time I made any noise louder than a breath the sound would carry itself throughout the room.
Eventually, a pool of saliva built up in my mouth, forcing me to either swallow or watch the drool drip down to my lap. Every time I did this (swallow that is) the woman next to me would turn at this apparent interruption to her enlightenment and quietly "shush" me. The sound of course was anything but quiet because every noise broke the silence much like a phone call ruins the mood in a movie theater. I found her to be rather hypocritical because I knew for a fact that she was not focused on obtaining "inner peace." Her stomach was growling constantly through the whole ordeal (Jesus lady eat first, it's not a pool). Thankfully, my meditation gave me the time to develop many fat jokes. Fortunately for her, my new found compassion prevented me from word vomiting these clever witticisms. That and the fact that the facilitator (also sitting next to me) scared me to tears.
By the time we reached the walking portion of the meditation, the bottoms of my feet had fallen asleep. In my mind I thought my walk looked like a recently transformed zombie pursuing the flesh of the anorexic shusher running ahead of me. In actuality, I looked more like a depressed teenager that's feet appeared to be fighting the idea of forward motion. One meditator even asked if I was all right when we were putting everything away. To which I of course said yes and then made up some garbage about coming back next week. My conscience is telling me to go. Which I was going to do until I found its off switch...vodka.