By Ezekiel Buchheit
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 27, 1998

Abandon all hope, ye who register here

It's registration time again. And I was going to finally quit smoking.

I love the way this university registers its students. I think it's endlessly clever. First, the registration is done by phone. I would like to point out, and this is true, that half of the world's population has not personally ever used a phone. But the university, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that for the convenience of somebody, though I can't imagine who, we should all try and register by phone.

And what the hell, let's just discriminate by social security numbers while were at it. Remember elementary school? Remember how the people whose names started with an A always got to stand first in line, choose the cool toys first, got all the good food in the cafeteria, and generally got away with any fool thing they felt like simply because of that damn A? It's the same concept here, just a more grown-up version of it.

So now it's your turn to register. Yeah, you went in the third block, but heck, it's only the third block of students to register, you'll still get the classes you want. Right? Ha ha, hell no. Kiss your classes good-bye. Let's just pretend you somehow manage to get through on the line. We'll pretend that magically you beat out the other 15,000 students in the third block, and dialed into one of the U of A's many (5) phone lines. Let's also pretend that you didn't fuck up any one of the millions of numbers you have to enter into the phone which immediate leaves you with my personal favorite message, "Thanks for using RSVP. Good-bye, Asshole."

Let's pretend that you made it through all this successfully and you have your list of classes sitting right in front of you and you're prepped. It's sad that one can be so naive. You see, the university programmed RSVP to be the most fool-proof registration program in existence. You will never register. The little computerized voice of Satan clearly enunciates all of its syllables for you at the speed of glacier migration and then (this is my favorite part) it spells your last name. The reason they do this is to stall, while the U of A's hired registration spies, using advanced snooping gear, peek in on that list of classes in front of you, call in the real registration number, the one where they talk to a real, live, competent human being, and quickly snatch your classes all away.

Well, not all of them. The university at least pretends to offer classes, and there actually is a rather large selection of them. You could take Research and Study of the Cognitive Thoughts, Beliefs and Social Interactions of East Jordanian Hair Stylists, Eroticism and Sexuality of the Amish Culture, Animal Slaughter, or Historical Impacts of Goat Shearing. Don't worry, you'll still be a student.

Ha, you probably believed me. You won't even get those classes because registration is only available during certain hours, so while you were looking up all these alternative courses, the university was busy shutting down registration and selling your social security number to slave countries.

Of course, none of this is true. It's all just my humble opinion. Registration really is just a good old fun time. Sit down with your girl or boy, put on some Nat King Cole, relax and enjoy. Make sure you've called the hospital ahead of time and reserved a room so when the embolism pops in your brain, you've got a place to stay.

And I'll see you next year. In our Criminology, Psychology and Behaviors of Transsexual Nuns and Their Pets seminar.

Ezekiel Buchheit is a freshman majoring in English. His column "I Like Biscuits," runs every Monday.