Mr. Meanie-Pants and me

Wildcat File Photo Arizona Daily Wildcat Tony Carnevale

I should know; I'm knee-deep in them already. No, hip-deep. A week of school is done, and syllabi and textbooks envelop me like tar. I should be thankful for the privilege to devote most of my life to my own education, but I'm really not. I used to feel terribly guilty about this. After all, there are entire counties in New Jersey which will never have the benefit of a college degree, and here I am wasting valuable resources. Then, through methods too dangerous to divulge, I discovered the truth.

You may think of college as a beneficial experience, as a privileged pasture where growing minds are fertilized by the finest poop around. You would be wrong. The fact is that the University of Arizona exists solely to be a pain in my butt. This university is not some faceless institution. It - indeed, he - is my archnemesis, and his first thought each morning is, "How can I torment my hapless victim?" He calls me his "hapless victim." I call him "Mr. Meanie-Pants."

Though it appears that I'm only a few semesters from graduation, I know that I'm not. As long as I have money, Mr. Meanie-Pants wants to keep me here. So he created the "General Education" system, which forces me to repeat high school. This by itself would be bad enough, but Mr. Meanie-Pants compounded the evil by making it impossible for me to know what, exactly, is required. Here's an actual excerpt from the University of Arizona Course Catalog.

All students must take three (3) units from List 1 and six (6) units from List 2, or nine (9) units from List 3. If there are seven (7) vowels in the student's mother's maiden name, the student must spin around three (3) times before entering or leaving any University building; otherwise, the student must never, ever watch NBC on Friday nights. The green rabbit flies at noon. Boinky-boinky boink boink (boink). The rest of the instructions will be in Japanese.(Text lapses into Japanese.)

I was doing fine until that last part, but I can't read Japanese.

After I got it translated, I found that one requirement, "Global Literature Studies," might be satisfied by one of these four courses: "The Cultural Globalization of Literature," "Literary Cultural Globalization," "Global Literature in Culture," or "Naked Chicks and Proust." That's just silly. It's no longer enough to just study naked chicks or Proust. You have to study how naked chicks affect Proust. Thus, we're left with classes like "Turnips of my Heart: the Impact of Twentieth-Century Agriculture on the Romance Novel." (An actual class, I assure you - just check the catalog.)

Anyway. So I had these four choices, with nothing to distinguish them but their names and cryptic descriptions. Ah yes, the course descriptions. Let me quote again from the UA Course Catalog:

CCLS 143. The Cultural Globalization of Literature. This course will explore the effects of naked chicks on the work of Proust. Students will get to look at pictures of naked chicks, pictures of Proust, pictures of naked chicks with Proust, pictures of a naked Proust, and pictures of a fully-clothed Ethel Merman. Writing sample required.

I don't understand this course description at all. What does "fully-clothed" mean? Is Ethel Merman wearing gloves? Boots? Headwear? Because there are a lot of things that constitute "fully-clothed," y'know.

To aid me in my decision, I sought out a faculty advisor. This was a mistake.

"Can I help you?" asked the receptionist.

"Yes," I responded. "There's this thing about a fully-clothed Ethel Merman that I need explained -"

"No advising available," she said. "Advisors busy. Go away."

Damn Mr. Meanie-Pants.