Charlotte MacQuattie ‘28
A Pleasure To Have In Class
Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of students quite like the dreaded read aloud. We all know the feeling; that big block of text appears on the slideshow and a chill is sent down your spine as the professor asks for… a volunteer *dun dun dun*.
Students in Professor Plum’s philosophy class recently lived this nightmare. Sophomore Ryan O’Brien tells The Eggplant of the debacle, “As soon as I saw that big paragraph, I knew I was done for. I tried to look away but the picture of Machiavelli and his freaky little smirk was staring into my soul.”
Classmate Brian McRyan adds, “It was a classic stand-off. I pulled out all the tricks to not get cold-called; drinking my water, pretending to sneeze, looking really intently at my laptop to make it look like I’m thinking when I’m actually watching ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’ everything!”
Luckily for Brian, Professor Plum foolishly trusted that someone would eventually volunteer and waited patiently before the silent class. And wait he did. Not one student dared to tackle “The Prince” excerpt. Ryan says he would’ve volunteered if he hadn’t just spent five minutes in Spanish Literature attempting the word “desafortunadamente”.
After ten minutes of silence occasionally broken by swirling iced coffees, one brave soul raised a hand in the back of the class. Students gasped as Brad Chadley made the ultimate sacrifice for his classmates and took on this perilous task. It was a noble effort, though Brad stumbled over the more difficult words like “Vitellozzo Vitelli”, “ecclesiastical”, and “prince”. What should have been a 20 second reading devolved into a 20 minute battle between poor Brad and his limited literacy, and the philosophy class was held hostage by the college senior with a 5th grade reading level.
“Halfway through, I looked at the crucifix on the wall and asked God what I had done to deserve this kind of punishment,” classmate Marina Marino says. “Poor Brad trying to pronounce ‘dictatorial’ was like tripping on the stairs and spilling your $7 cool beans latte; sad and painful.” Finally, Brad had summited the Everest of Machiavelli and finished the paragraph with a whopping 5 minutes left in class.
The class erupted in applause and cheers, students raised their coffees to toast to Brad Chadley’s Miracle on Stein 2. Brad was hoisted into the air and paraded around campus as a hero of the people, slayer of words, skipper of classes, and warmer of benches. Desafortunadamente, Professor Plum needs another volunteer for the next slide. Go Cross go!
Featured image courtesy of https://www.dreamstime.com/
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