Several morals

I have graduated and I will have my Bachelor’s in English in six to eight weeks. My GPA is about as good as it’s ever going to get, and thanks to NKU, it will never be that good. This semester I made the Dean’s List – I think for the first time in my life. I made all A’s and one B, but let me tell you about the B.

During finals week, my roommates and I slowly made our move into our newly acquired house a few miles from campus. By Wednesday, I was settled in quite nicely in my new room, the first time I have actually had my own room in six years. My room happens to be at the south end of the house, right next to the bathroom. I had been working on a research paper all week and had just finished it Wednesday morning, with plans to study the remainder of the day for my history final. The class met every Tuesday from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and I never wrote less than five pages of notes per class. The final exam was cumulative so it was imperative that I study all day.

After I used the bathroom that morning, a few hours later I noticed the toilet was running. When I flipped on the light in the bathroom, to my surprise the floor was covered in about an inch of water, the bowl slowly overflowing. I dove in to turn the water off and screamed for a mop and bucket. Water was draining into the air vent on the floor and it reminded me of a terrible local plumbing commercial on TV where some dude narrates to a similar, but dramatized pathetic situation, “Is this you?”

I bailed the bulk of the water into the bathtub with a red plastic cup and mopped up the rest. All the while, my roommates were calling the Landlord who in turn called the plumber. When I had finished and cleaned myself up somewhat, I returned to my room to relax on my bed and start studying for my history final. To my horror, the water had leaked through the wall, where my history notes and library books were laying. Fortunately (I suppose) my notebook was on the bottom of the pile, absorbing most of the water, while the only library book with a plastic covering was next. The books were safe but my notes were not.

In a rage, I nearly threw the completely soaked and ruined notebook across the room. But, I managed to calm myself and think of a solution. I cleared out the living room, and painstakingly separated all 63 pages with my pocketknife, laying each page on a paper towel to dry. The process took about an hour and a half, but when the pages finally dried out, the notes were illegible since I had written them in ink. For some reason the black ink didn’t run that bad, but since I alternated each class between black and blue ink, I was only able to study about half my notes. However, I must have gotten at least a C on the final the next day, because I got a B in the class, and I had made B’s on the other two exams.

This story has several morals: don’t write notes in blue ink; don’t move into a room next to a bathroom; don’t wait until the last minute to study for an exam, and never trust a toilet.