Mess Hall Memories, Part I

I know you guys have already heard this one, but I have been itching to write it down for the sake of posterity. It's funnier because it's true, and Tom and Joe may even remember it...

I signed up to major in Computer Science because I had learned HTML at the age of 12 and thought I was some sort of computer expert, and suffered from the delusion that the world needed me and would give me a paying job (as opposed to a "begging" job commonly ascribed to theology majors) when I was unleashed from the womb of college. Little did I know that HTML is not a “real” programming language, that computers are really imbecilic machines whose main reason for existence is to exasperate people, and that there are as many computer programmers as there are grains of sand in the Mojave Desert. I also did not know I would be the lone woman in the Computer Science Department at Franciscan University for three years--so much for female companionship--and that I would suddenly inherit 20 male classmates who could only think linearly. Had I known these things beforehand, I would have immediately signed on as a Biology major, instead of waiting to do so when Joe and Tom discovered my middle name online and bribed our CS professor to use it during roll call…

Be that as it may…

I was sitting in the computer lab working on my second “real” programming project ever, dejectedly reading the gajillion error codes generated by the dumb compiler. (It really was a dumb compiler because it never intuited how my programs were supposed to work; instead, it just did exactly what I instructed it to do, except it wouldn’t budge when I told it to go to hell.) Just as I was approaching my wits’ end (and wanting desperately to keep them intact), I espied Dr. Kovach entering his office. A miracle! It wasn’t even office hours!

“Dr. Kovach, Dr. Kovach, what luck! Can you please, please help me with my program?” I gave him the classic puppy-eyed look, thinking that the only XX chromosomes in the department might actually come in handy in a time of crisis, but his sarcastic expression quelled all hope of assistance.

His eyes lit up mischievously at my request, and his frazzled red hair and eccentric orange beard made him seem a devilish sort of imp. “I will only help you IF--” he paused dramatically, “you give me a dozen chocolate chip cookies right now.”

For many, deportation to Siberia would have been more welcome than this impossible sentence. As for me, I jumped excitedly up and down as I produced for him exactly twelve chocolate chip cookies from my coat pockets, suppressing the urge to laugh maniacally. His eyes almost fell out of his head.

I had just come from the cafeteria, from which it is absolutely forbidden to sneak food, even though our semester bills screamed the fact that we did pay an arm and a leg for that slosh. That day, I had made it my particular mission in life to see just how many chocolate chip cookies would fit in my deep coat pockets. I got exactly six in each one.

Needless to say, that A was the most ingeniously earned mark in the history of the department.