Having written and turned in four perfect "A-" essays, I have now stooped to a new low in my search for that all elusive real "A." I have resorted to writing about a dream.
Last Tuesday night I showed the twenty seventh draft of my persuasive essay to the professor and asked for advice. I did not consider ripping out and burning pages to be constructive critique. But as a result I spent the whole evening so concerned about my assignment that I could not sleep and decided to take a walk on the roof.
While waiting for the up elevator, a short fat guy with one of those weird points-straight-up hairdo's comes in and pushes the up button again. He has Andy Warthog printed in luminescent paint on the back of his leopard skin jacket. When the elevator arrives, I follow him in reluctantly. I push the button for the twenty seventh floor and turn around to find Andy Warthog has twenty seven fat midgets with him. Each one has an "A-" stamped on his forehead and is wearing horn rimmed eye glasses complete with a set of bushy black eyebrows, a fake nose and drooping mustache. The Warthog guy--I think I've seen him on Murphy Brown--politely asks if I mind if he smokes while one of the midgets pushes every button for every floor on the panel. Before I can answer, all twenty seven midgets take out Havana cigars and light up.
I struggle to stick my head out for a deep breath when the door opens on each floor, but the midgets have found a five hundred pound dictionary and are constantly reading the definitions of twelve letter words. So the cover blocks the door most of the time.
On the tenth floor I manage to squeeze my head out and find one end of the hallway is crammed full of neatly stacked essays waiting to be buried in the huge graveyard at the other end. The sign over the door reads "B's". A pall bearer eyes me intently and I suck air and settle back to the relative safety of the elevator.
I am lying on the floor gasping for breath when we reach the twenty seventh floor. As I crawl into a class room full of people, a glare technician pulls up in his ambulance, grabs a ladder out of the back and begins directing the ceiling lights away from a bald headed guy in the front of the room. Two guys in the back of the room are looking for their names written on the underwear stapled to the wall, and a woman to one side is struggling with a suit case full of commas. A girl in the back is arguing with a cowboy wearing a one hundred gallon hat over whether or not the national anthem mentions the "land of cotton," and a guy in the front is slowly eating a huge vanilla ice cream cone with a steaming maraschino cherry on top.
A door swings open behind me and a woman in a black leather negligee shuffles in cracking a whip. Her army helmet is covered with camouflage netting and "Made in China" is written on the tops of her shoes. She is carrying a portable record player and playing 45's on the 78 speed. Missing her entrance, one student continues talking and receives a crack of the whip that leaves a "B-" tattooed on his forehead.
I remember the unfinished essay under my arm and turn to leave but fall flat on my face as first a whip and then two hands grab my ankles and pull me toward the front of the class. I turn and see a bright red "A-" bearing down on me and I scream for help. Four hundred ninety nine words crawl off my five hundred word essay and start fighting among themselves. Only the commas survive and all that's left of my paper is one word, 27 commas, and a title. The grade is inevitable. I stop struggling and look around for one of the midgets to kick while the perky professor studies my paper.
When she hands it back I do not look right away. I savor that one moment of ignorance for as long as I can before curiosity forces me on. I open the folder and written at the top is "A-, I like the story but the title could use some work."
I crumple the paper to toss in the trash but have learned an important lesson. Real "A" essays are the stuff that dreams are made of.