The Good News and the Bad

I know it’s clichéd, but when my roommate came home from class, I asked her if she wanted the good news first or the bad. She wasn’t too brave. She wanted the good news first.

“I already bought the mouse traps,” I told her cheerfully. “I think you can guess the bad news.”

Overall, it wasn’t my day. I had my first class for cultural affairs reporting, and it seemed a little dry. In fact one of my classmates drifted off into dreamland on a number of occasions. And he’s a snorer. At one point the professor turned from the dry erase board toward the class and asked, “Was that a snore? Well I don’t blame you.”

I think there’s promise for the class to get a lot better though, if for no other reason than the professor talks with his eyes closed, which is sort of entertaining. Plus there are only four writing assignments, which doesn’t seem daunting after a semester of reporting bootcamp.

When I got home, I had ten new emails. My full inbox was the result of a string of missives back and forth between Peapod, the Scooby and our friend Martyball. Peapod had heard that a guy from UVa was in prison, because he had sex with a 14-year-old boy. He (who shall remain nameless) had a highly-coveted scholarship, lived on the Lawn, was an all-around leader at the university, and I was friends with him. We were admitted into the guide service at the same time (giving tours is dorky. I know, I know…) and so we spent a lot of time together. We were also from the same hometown and went to junior high school together (although he was in the super-dork G.T. program and I wasn't).

This news totally knocked the air out of me. I remember at times thinking that he was one of the smartest people I knew in college. I also spent a considerable amount of time thinking he was a little on the annoying side. But a child molester? Never. Now he’s serving three to five in a jail in Pennsylvania. What a waste….

This news in conjunction with seeing a mouse dart across my living room was almost more than I could take. My roommate and I set up mouse traps and went to yoga, hoping that by the time we returned, our new pet would be trapped inside of one of our catch-and-release traps. Alas, our traps were empty (unless you count half a cracker and some peanut butter), so now I’m sitting on my bed praying the little guy doesn’t make an appearance. Luckily, if I think about my new class, I should be asleep in no time.