Waiting for Petronius

And so there she was, roaming the halls of the Angel College Humanities Institute. How could I know that fateful knock on my office door would lead to a story of academia run amok? On first appearance she looked as crazy as she turned out to be. She was paying a couple of Swedish exchange students to assist her with her written exams. These preliminary exams were required prior to pursuing a doctorate. She was paying them 10$ an hour, and I suspect she had sought help elsewhere. Her psychosis, however, was such that I doubt anyone else but me could have helped this poor creature. Now, I know “creature” sounds harsh, but I say this deliberately because her intellectual abilities, or perhaps better, mental faculties, were such that she had no more business in graduate school than my dog, Shadow.

She got my name from someone in Huron Michigan University’s Distance Education Program’s editing department. Normally, editing is not that dangerous, but one look at her and I knew she was trouble. She squawked when I told her my fee was 50$ an hour.

But when I started to shut my office door she suddenly acquiesced and asked me if I could start the afternoon of the following day. We agreed to meet in the U.G.L.Y. (Underground Graduate Library) at 3PM. I don’t know if there is really such an animal as a “pack rat,” but the person I observed going through library security, bringing in a clear plastic trunk of raggedy, dog-eared, sloppily highlighted, communications journals, overstuffed backpack of stolen books, and multiple laptop computers and printers, would certainly qualify as some kind of pseudo-intellectual vagabond rodent.