Ahh, syllabus day. The quarter/semester’s first day of classes in which the unwritten rule states that no learning of any kind is to be tolerated. We all know it, we most of the time love it. Except the times Professor Poopstain decides to break this sacred bond and rattle off interesting facts about his personal life and yearly trips to Gondwonaland to study medieval mushroom spores.

The above has never actually happened to me, mostly because my major is Sport Industry. The longest I’ve ever been kept in class on syllabus day was ten minutes to discuss why the Clippers suck so bad or why Martina Navritalova only succeeded in tennis because of her sex appeal. Needless to say, syllabus day is like a holiday for me… that is, until syllabus day 2k5.

Usually 10 minutes of class is good. But not when you have 4 of them in 4 different buildings and it’s torrentially pouring outside, first-day attendance is mandatory, and the term “up the creek” has never been so poignant. I was almost literally up the creek, w/o an umbrella or a paddle.

I needed to act quickly or my beautiful self would melt like most of Pam Anderson’s plastic body parts in the Sahara sun. Naturally, I attempted to swipe an umbrella from the first Sorostitute I saw. However, she proved stronger than her bulimic body looked and I had to yank harder, causing the umbrella to fly right into the windshield of an oncoming car.

The car, no doubt startled by the boniness of said girl (onlookers later said that it may have had something to do with the runaway umbrella), swerved in the opposite direction, striking a 70-ish history professor, sending his corduroy-jacketed self rolling through the dirty street.

Panicked, I turned to run, only to find my path blocked by a kid w/ crutches AND A NECK BRACE. Now, I normally do not take to beating on cripples, but I had to get out of there so I bumped him (witnesses would later say that it was more of a plowing motion), sending him to the ground across the street from the now unconscious professor.

The next part was totally an accident, I swear. With two injuries (possibly fatal) somewhat indirectly resulting from my actions, I was not about to go down without a fight, errr… flee from the scene. Some peace corps girl weighing in at a solid 275 tried to tackle me but I busted out my best Barry Sanders juke, evading her only turning to see her on top of the poor crippled kid in sixty-nine position, just like the cheerleading scene in Dodgeball. I felt really bad, but not bad enough to do jail time, so I kept running.

At this point, my arch nemesis Meter Maid #41 (whom I’d declared a Jihad against two years ago after getting owned with $100 worth of parking tickets in one week) decided it was her civic duty to stop me. One Lawrence Phillips stiff-arm later and I was home free… until a real cop spotted me and began the pursuit.

For some reason I decided to run to my house (in hindsight that was probably a bad decision) but mid-run I slipped on my muddy/gravely driveway and landed face-first in a puddle of filth, ruining my brand new outfit that my mom got me for Christmas. Five minutes later, with a little less skin and a lot less dignity, I was on my front porch giving my side of the story to Officer Sticky McStickler. Apparently he was not impressed, evidenced by the no-less-than FIVE different citations sitting right in front of me as I type this post: disturbing the peace, assault, battery, fleeing from the scene of a crime & resisting arrest. Law School can’t get here soon enough.

Syllabus day sucks. Don’t worry about me though. Worry about the poor crippled kid who may have lost his virginity (and maybe a few vertebrae) by accident. To a whale of a woman. Yikes.

p.s. - Don’t forget to check out the “Tool of the Week” and “Word of the Day” sections so I won’t be slaving over my keyboard for those tiresome 30 seconds/day for nothing.