Sandwich of Ruin!

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Much of my time spent in college was filled with trying to figure out insignificant and meaningless ways to get around the red tape put in place by the bureaucratic monolith known as Winona State University. I created a meticulous web of methodologies for getting around many of the rules and regulations set forth by that institute of higher learning.

One of the most annoying rituals expected of WSU students, and probably college students nationwide, was the process known as pre-registration. In order to get the classes I needed or wanted to take for the next quarter, I had to pre-register for them. The thing is, I always kind of found out about pre-registration a couple days beforehand and had to hurriedly go through the process in one-fourth the time typically required.

I was of the strongly held belief that campus officials kept the exact days of pre-registration a closely held secret because they liked to watch the students scramble under the wire and miss out on the classes they really needed and had to opt, instead, for mundane general education classes like Art Appreciation Appreciation 101: Appreciating Those Who Appreciate Art.

Of course, there was no such conspiracy. The dates for pre-registration were dutifully inscribed every year in the WSU Handbook, a wondrous tome that I never actually read, but which served beautifully as table leg extension to keep the kitchen table from wobbling while a cut a pizza.

At any rate, I'd usually become aware of pre-registration mostly by accident: I would see a strange number of students walking along reading class schedules, for example, or I'd overhear someone talking about having to pre-register the next day. And I think, "SHIT! I have to pre-register!!"

Well, one of the many requirements for pre-registration for students with undeclared majors (which was me, until mid-way through my fourth year), was that we had to meet with our university-appointed advisors, so they could advise and suggest classes, and then they had to approve of your tentative class list by applying their signature. If you were an undeclared major (again, like I was for, like, EVER), you could not get into the cacaphony of the pre-registration hall without your advisor's signature.

My advisor was an ancient specimen of a French teacher who last saw dick early in the Hoover administration. She was amazingly hunched over, to the point of being a human arch, and her office had an unmistakable odor of old pee. As an advisor, the pee-stinky French octogenarian arch left much to be desired. She'd simply ask for the class list I'd prepared and she signed it, and then she'd tell me to leave her office because she "had a lot to do."

After two quarters of obtaining my advisor's signature, I decided I didn't want to do that any more. So, I started forging her signature. Well, it wasn't forging it so much as it was tracing it. Since I had her signature written down on a class list from a couple earlier pre-registrations, it was a simple matter to dig through my records and just trace her John Hancock.

After about two quarters of tracing, however, I lost the original signature. It was heartbreaking, because it meant I'd have to endure the pee arch French advisor to get her signature all over again. But, just before I was about to do just that, I decided to see if I could get past the ever-watchful eyes of the pre-registration guards using a fake signature. So, using an ultra-flourishy style, I signed my class list "Kermit T. Frogg."

The ever-watchful eyes of the pre-registration guards didn't give the signature a second glance. Either I was an exceptional forger, or there was an advisor on campus by the name of Kermit T. Frogg, or the ever-watchful preregistration guards weren't as ever-watchful as I had been led to believe.

Emboldened by my rebellious act, the next quarter I slipped into the pre-registration hall without so much as a raised eyebrow, having successuffly forged the name of one "Dick Hardon." Although I can't remember every single name I used to pass by the radar of pre-registration guards, the names "Albert Einstein" and "Jerry Seinfeld" come to mind as two that should not have worked under any circumstances, but did nonetheless.

In the end, I graduated after five years with a journalism/mass communications major and a history minor, all without ever again having to visit my stinky old advisor. So, I owe my diploma to you, Kermit T. Frogg, and you Albert Einstein, and you Jerry Seinfeld, and you most of all Dick Hardon. Thank you, each and every one.

Posted by Ryan at March 2, 2004 03:56 PM