Death of a TA by Parker Briggsmore

Here's a present for the weekend: a post by Parker from the archives of 2001. Enjoy! -KV

DEATH OF A T.A.
PART ONE

To tell the whole of this story would require, in my own opinion at least, an article that is unacceptably long. Despite that apprehension, I have been persuaded by outside sources to relate the occurrence in its entirety.

For all this story's magnitude and scope it began with a simple question asked in a simple manner.

What are you doing tonight?

Wednesday night. On my scholastic calendar, Wednesday night is a relatively calm and short evening. I say calm in that it is my night off from work (academic and vocational) and I say short because I have an eight o'clock class the following morning.

Normally this would not be a deterrent to an accomplished slacker such as myself but this particular class is a lab, in which, I must stay awake for at least three hours to function. Now while sleeping in lab is a little more serious a violation, I still would not be so concerned with my performance if it were not for the fact that if you miss a lab you must make it up that week or you fail the class. This stipulation, compounded with the fact that this class is integral to me going to graduate school next year and not spending a year just bumming around, results in generally calm and short Wednesday nights. Enter my roommate.

I have the rare pleasure of having a good roommate. He is considerate and respectful and since those are the main qualities you look for in a roommate, I have lived with him for several years. This means that, while I may talk disparagingly about him at times, if it ever really came down to a serious matter I would be there for him.

That being said, there are several minor bad qualities about him. While a few pages could be devoted to that subject alone I shall focus (in this article at least) on his uncanny ability to convince me to go against my better judgment. This power he has is exponentially increased when another one of my friends, who shall remain nameless, is in attendance. When these two people are combined in their will to drive me off my academic pilgrimage, I truly believe that my best bet is to pull the mule cart off to the side and start drinking the sacramental wine.

I try my best to avoid this conniving pair on Wednesday night as often as possible, but even the most determined of hermits must eventually leave his burrow for food. Opening the door of my apartment room to 40oz of Old English and The Karate Kid on DVD at midnight meant I never stood a chance. I was fucked, I knew it, and I couldn't do thing about it.

"What are you doing tonight?" the deadly duo asked in a smug voice knowing damn well what I was going to be doing that night. I was going to be watching half drunk The Karate Kid in all its digitally re-mastered glory. And so, my well-intentioned plan of a responsible night went hurtling out the window. Too many repeats of the Tri-Valley Karate Championship will extend The Karate Kid running time to miniseries proportions and my short Wednesday night suddenly became three hours longer than I wanted it to be.

7:00 am, half asleep, in a warm bed, on a cold morning, on three hours of sleep is a bad time to make decisions concerning your academic career. I repeat, a bad time.

Needless to say, I missed my lab that morning. My alarm clock's insistent beeping came and went like a ghost in the night, which is to say, completely unnoticed. I did wake up at 7:00 o'clock that Thursday morning. I clearly remember the coldness of the air biting at my cheeks, the sound of the rain softly falling outside my window and, most of all, the warmth of my blanket. Whether it was some subconscious survival mechanism or a higher being trying to help me out I don't know, but the fact is, I do remember being up at 7:00 in the morning.

This is puzzling because my alarm is set for 7:10. Given this spontaneous gift of wakefulness you would think I would seize the moment, get out of bed and go to school. No dice. "I'll just make up the lab." I thought, as I promptly became reacquainted with the dream world, in which, I was being carried off the mat victorious with Mr. Miyagi smiling knowingly in the background.

Four hours later, the sleeping giant awoke. I scratched myself contentedly at the previous nights adventures. Amidst my habitual morning scratch, I slowly began to realize that I had missed my lab. Bad form to say the least but I assured myself that as long as I made up the lab in another section by the end of the week I was ok.

Thirty minutes and a SportsCenter later I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. While I was in the shower an alarming thought came to me, "What if there were no Friday labs scheduled?" I resolved to get online and check the schedule of classes to find out. I got out of the shower at around noon and made my way to the computer only to be reminded by a grumbling stomach that it was lunchtime. I just woke up too. That means it's breakfast and lunchtime, excellent. Hmm…coco puffs, any milk? Nice. Oh, that frozen pizza pocket sounds tasty right now as well, lets have that too. Two Nutri-grain bars to balance out the meal health wise and I was set.

An hour later, finally satiated, I trundled over to the computer and promptly checked out the scores of my favorite sports teams until I remembered what I had got online for in the first place. That's right, check to see if there are any Friday labs I could make it up in. Hmm, where would that information be? I'm sure there must be at least a couple of Friday labs, hope it isn't an 8:00 lab, don't want to get up that early, if its at 12:00 I could play basketball in the morning, here we go the schedule of lab times………Oh…FUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!!

Oh Fuck

There were no Friday labs. It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on my head. My lazy little morning/afternoon suddenly became the most wasted and regretted moments of my life. The last lab scheduled was Thursday at 12:30; it was now 1:45 pm.

I sprang into motion, wasting time in my anxiety. The simple acts of putting on my shirt and brushing my teeth became impossibly difficult in my attempts to accomplish them at the same time. Fingers numb with shock struggled with zippers, fumbled with buttons, and pulled at laces. Despite this I was out of my apartment and driving to school in less than five minutes.

During the 10 minute drive to school, no longer able to deny the thought process with hurried motion, my mind began to realize what was happening and the consequences therein. As each thought process began to slowly register I became more and more unstable. Luckily the self defense mechanism of denial kicked in. I began to concoct wild scenarios in which this was not happening. Perhaps I had read the schedule of classes wrong, perhaps I was not remembering the policy of the class correctly, maybe this week was the week we had no lab, maybe the lab got cancelled, maybe…aww who the fuck am I kidding?! I got to get my fucking ass to class!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Will our hero reach his class on time? Will he miss it and fail? is anyone still reading this? Anyone? hello? Answer me damnit! Why wont you answer? To find out the answers to these questions and more, tune in for the next installment of DEATH OF A TA, same bat-time, same bat-channel!

-Parker Briggsmore, 2001

[Unfortunately Parker never completed the next and final installment of DEATH. However, he and Klaus DID manage to pound out a script for a short film. When that film is shot, it will appear on The Brothel. And then you will finally know how this all ends. I know, the suspense. Seriously. -KV]