Course Overload #3: "Shhh!"

“Need a quiet place to study?” the sign read. Why yes Mr. Sign, I do. How did you know?
According to the sign on the door, the second floor of the library was reserved for quiet study, and that’s what I needed. My modern American English class had been canceled for some reason and I had to kill some time before history. And what better way to kill time than studying, aside from hanging out with what I’ve heard other people call “friends.” But I’m not exactly sure what those are, or even how much one of them would cost, so it was down to the second floor for me.

Stepping through the door, I found a comfortable seat near the window, pulled out my history book, and cracked it open. No more than six seconds later, I was startled by a loud noise.

“Thump! Thump! Thump!”

I tried to ignore it, but after a few minutes, I had begun digging out my own eyeball with my thumb in frustration. I needed to know what was making those horrible sounds. A quick search of the library revealed nothing, so I went to the librarian’s desk to find out what was going on. Low and behold, I found the librarian stacking old textbooks into a giant cardboard box.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Shh! No talking in the library. This is a place for quiet study,” she yelled back, tossing in a few more books with a loud crash.

“Well, I came to ask if you could stop making so much noise. I’ve got to study for this history test, see, and…” Before I could finish, another librarian approached and carelessly tossed a stack of CDs into the mysterious box.

This piqued my curiosity. Storing books in a library is one thing, but CDs? I snuck a look inside the box while the librarians conversed, and to my surprise, it was filled with the things nightmares are scared of. Next to about a dozen selections from Opera’s book club were a pair of leg warmers, three Milli Vanilli CDs, every Ace of Base single ever, a copy of Freddie Got Fingered, some Pokémon cards, Plan 9 from Outer Space on DVD, and a stack of E.T. Atari cartridges.

“What’s this all about?” I asked, puzzled.

“If you must know, these are the things we’re sending away,” the librarian replied.

“Sending away?” I was more confused than ever.

“Yes, sending away. Whenever we don’t like something, we put it in a box and send it to Rutgers University in New Jersey. We never put a return address on it, so those suckers have no idea who’s sending them all this awful junk.”

I didn’t say anything for a long time. I watched the librarians disassemble an entire Macintosh computer and put it in the box piece by piece. “Why Rutgers?” I finally asked.

“Why not?” the librarian replied. “Now if you don’t stop bothering me, I’ll put you in here too. It’s not all that hard to poke some air holes in one of these boxes, you know.” The thought of being so close to so many horrible things made me scream inside. Without another word, I went back to my history book.

Within a few minutes, I had settled down and was starting to read again, when suddenly, the shrill cry of a siren cut through the air. It wasn’t a fire alarm, no. It was more like a car alarm.

“What’s that flippin’ noise!?” I exclaimed, only I didn’t say “flippin’.”

“Oh,” said the girl sitting next to me, “that’s the Learning Alarm.”

“The Learning Alarm?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she replied, “it goes off whenever someone starts learning something in here. It’s to alert everyone else to your great accomplishment. It’s a real honor.”

“I should have gone to Marist,” I mumbled, gathering my things and walking toward the exit. Just above the door, a small box-like object flashed like a strobe light, and emitted the earsplitting alarm tone. Taking great aim, I tossed my history book at the box, knocking it to the ground. Somehow, it continued flashing and wailing. It must have had a self-contained power supply.

Without even looking, I tossed both the alarm and my history book into the Rutgers box and ran out of the library crying. As I ran from the room, I could hear the librarian shouting at me. “Stop that incessant crying!” she yelled. “Don’t you know that the second floor is reserved for quiet study?”

I never did get much studying done for that test, but I’m not exactly worried about it. I’m a smart individual, and perhaps I absorbed enough information in class to pass. There’s that, and… let’s just say that the test is on its way to Rutgers now.

Course Overload #2: "Fire Bad"

Every once in a while, something happened at my college that was truly out of the ordinary. One time, the plumbing in the MST building broke, and all the toilets overflowed; it would have been funny if the death toll hadn’t been so high. A few years later, a hurricane hit and everyone needed to be sent home for the weekend. Little did I know when I woke up one fine morning that it was going to be one of those days.

The college café was serving hot dogs.

I couldn’t believe it. After I found out the great news, I was eager to get to the café. I bolted from the steps I had been sitting on and began my one-man race to glory. Somewhere along the line I found my friend Dave, and we decided to partake in the rarity of the hot dogs together.

I was one of those sunny September afternoons; the kind of day that seems more like July or August than a school month. Everything was perfect: the sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the smell of the freshly cut grass danced in the air, and millions of cubic feet of a highly flammable natural gas was leaking from a ruptured main somewhere near the dorms. Ah, that was the life.

Of course, Dave and I had no idea there was a gas leak and went skipping merrily to our potential deaths. As we approached the café, I noticed a huge group of people standing outside.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“It might have something to do with that natural gas smell,” replied Dave.

It looked like we were going to have to ask someone what was going on. I took a quick glance at the crowd, and fortunately I spotted my friend Sandy. She was standing near the entrance.

“What’s going on?” I asked, walking towards her.

“Apparently there’s some sort of gas leak,” Sandy replied.

I stopped for a moment, considering the possible repercussions of a gas leak. Specifically, I wondered if the hot dogs would be okay.

“What caused it?”

“Oh, it was probably the leprechauns,” said Sandy.

“The what?” I asked.

“The leprechauns,” she replied confidently. “I saw a few suspicious ones running around in Hudson before they evacuated us.”

“You mean to tell me there are leprechauns you consider non-suspicious?” interjected Dave.

“Wait, how long were you in there?” I asked, motioning towards the café.

“Like, two hours. I was going to leave as soon as I smelled the gas, but after a while, breathing it in makes you feel goooood.”

Well, that explained the leprechauns.

Much to my dismay, Dave and I decided that it would probably be in our best interest to eat somewhere else. Squirming our way out of the center of the crowd, something caught my eye. It was too far away for me to intervene. All I could do was look on in horror.

About ten feet away from me, a guy in a leather jacket was bringing a cigarette up to his mouth. He was mumbling something about classes being canceled to his friend, whose attention was firmly focused on the fire trucks that had just surrounded the campus. His other hand had a lighter. Slowly it rose to the edge of the cigarette.

My major happened to be Media Studies, so I’ll be the first to admit I do not have a long and prosperous career as a scientist ahead of me. But, I did pay attention in my high school Chemistry class just long enough to learn that natural gas is flammable. And that no matter how pretty and mesmerizing the Bunsen burner flame is you should never try to lick it. But that’s neither here nor there.

The only thing left for me to do was to stare death in the face, brace myself, and valiantly scream like a little girl. Luckily, in-between watching the mob of firemen come pouring out of the fire trucks, Cigarette Guy’s friend had turned around to speak with him.

“Hey,” Cigarette Guy’s friend began, “I just thought of something. Instead of pouring milk on my cereal in the morning, I could use vod… OH DEAR GOD! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” Cigarette Guy barley had time to look up from his lighter before the punches came raining down on him like a tsunami. Ah, crisis averted.

With Cigarette Guy writhing on the ground and the firemen descending upon the college like moths to a flame, everything looked like it would be all right. Dave and I managed to weasel our way out of the crowd at last, and, breathing a sigh of relief, we watched the action from a safe distance.

“It’s a good thing that the guy with the cigarette didn’t light it,” commented Dave, watching the firemen knock down a clearly unlocked door and scramble inside the Café.

“Yeah,” I replied. “That would have been disastrous.”

Dave shook his head. “It would have really detracted from the Bonfire Club’s meeting.”

“Right. It’s not nice to – Wait, the Bonfire Club?”

“All right, guys, you can put the wood down here,” a voice yelled. I watched as about 25 students dropped armloads of branches and ply wood on the ground where Cigarette Guy and his friend had been standing.

“Darn it,” interjected another member of the group. “I left the gasoline in my dorm. Wait here and I’ll go get it.”

She trotted off happily.

“If you don’t mind, Dave, I think I’ll skip lunch today,” I said, walking to my car. Dave agreed, and soon we had gone our separate ways.

Like I said, every once in a while, something happened at my college that was truly out of the ordinary. Much like the time that the toilets overflowed, and the time the hurricane hit, I’m sure that faithful day will remain the minds of the students for years to come: The day Matt Frey turns down hot dogs is truly out of the ordinary.

Oh, and the gas leak was kind of weird too.

Course Overload #1: "Multitasking"

I sat in the library one cold, rainy October morning, cramming in some last minute studying before my psychology test. I came to the library because it’s usually a nice, quiet place. But that morning, I would not have the silence I needed.

As I opened my psychology book and flipped to the appropriate page, my attention was drawn to the people entering the library. Normally, I don’t bother looking up to see who’s coming in, but these two were making so much noise, I’d have to have been deaf to not notice them. They walked in and sat down across from me.

Being the nosy person that I am, I couldn’t help “overhearing” their conversation. The first guy, who was wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day, was complaining that getting drunk wastes too much of his time.

“In between drinking and skipping most of my classes,” he said, “I never have time to do anything else.”

“What you need to do is learn how to multitask,” replied his friend, who had apparently shaved only half his face that morning.

“Multitask?” I wondered. They had my attention. Psychology test be damned; I was curious now.

“Yes, multitask,” he continued. “Multitasking is doing two things at once to save time. For example, why should drinking and going to class be two separate things? Why not bring your beer to class and drink it there? That way, you’ll save time by attending class and getting drunk simultaneously. Then you’ll have more time to study.”

“That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard,” I thought.

“That’s the greatest idea I’ve ever heard!” exclaimed Sunglasses. At that point, he became very excited. “Instead of using milk on my cereal in the morning, I could use vodka! The possibilities are endless!”

There, in that library, on that chilly October morning, I realized something: College students are insane. Although I’d only been attending college for a short time, I’d seen plenty of students embracing their psychosis. The first that comes to mind is the daily occurrences in my friend Dave’s dorm room. Upon entering, his room seems normal enough. There are a few chairs, a bed, and a small television in the corner. However, all I have to do is sit for a moment, and I’ll be treated to a display of insanity that never ceases to boggle my mind.

At least 23 times a day, Dave’s dorm door opens, and in comes an intruder that neither Dave nor I have ever seen. Without a word, the intruder walks into the room, takes some food, and leaves. Instead of stopping the thief, Dave greets him with a cheerful “hello.” Usually, the intruder gives a nod or a wave and proceeds on his way. Afterwards, I look at Dave and ask, “Who was that?” And every time, Dave answers back, “I don’t know.” Sometimes, someone steals a box of cereal. On the way out, the intruder looks at Dave and mumbles, “It’s for my vodka.”

The madness doesn’t end with drinking and stealing food from dorms. I noticed a while ago that an acquaintance of mine, Derek, shaved his head. This, in itself, was not necessarily insane. But one nippy December morning all that changed.

The weather had gone from okay to disagreeable that day. Rain seemed imminent. I was sitting in the student lounge in Aquinas, again trying to squeeze a bit more studying in before a quiz. I was startled by the sound of a familiar voice.

“Hello, Matt,” Derek said cheerfully. “It certainly is a cold day. I’m freezing!”

I looked up, a greeting on my lips, but found myself unable to speak. Derek, the guy who had shaved his head, was now wearing a winter hat. I wondered why he bothered shaving his head at all if he was just going to wear a hat. Why not just leave his hair where it was, and the hat at home?
“Why… with the hat… and the shaved head… and the…?” I replied.

“Well, nice seeing you,” Derek said, standing up to leave. It was then that I noticed Derek was wearing shorts.

Shorts.

The changes I made in my life after that were subtle. I stopped going to the library to study, to prevent overhearing any more ideas that are liable to compromise my precious, ever-slipping sanity, and I’m just a little more protective of my food when in Dave’s dorm. Finally, I keep my eyes closed at all times when talking to Derek, as I’ve decided that he should be an audio-only friend, for my safety, as well as his.

Oh well; I guess that sanity kind of subjective. For instance, there are probably a whole group of people who look at me and say, “What a freak! He has hair on his head and puts milk on his Cheerios.”