Natural Selection by BumblingFool

by

As much as Vance wanted to spend every possible moment with his bride to be, he was still saddled with making certain that he didn’t slip up on his grades. Even though the year was winding down, he felt as though he had a dozen plates simultaneously spinning in the air and if he was not adequately attentive, one just might fall and break. And on top of that, the fraternity seemed to be placing more demands upon his time as well. Many votes were required to pass the mantel onto new leadership for the following year, mandatory votes. Although he appreciated the brotherhood of the fraternity, he wished that he would have had more time to devote to participation. But as far as he knew, he met the fraternal requirements of his benefactor. Little did he know at the time how fortuitous his membership in that fraternity would affect him in very positive ways.

It was mid-May of his final school year at Harvard. The class was ‘Advanced Statistical Analysis — Derivatives Versus Commodities’. It was one of the most challenging courses of his stint there. Professor Gunther, who taught the class was a ghost. If anyone had problems or questions outside of class, good luck. He was seemingly never available. Because of that, Vance made sure to ask everything he found unsolvable during class. But even this tactic was, at times, frustrating because about twenty-five percent of the time, the professor had a TA play a recording of his lecture for the day and thus, was otherwise unavailable.

Vance felt pretty good about the class due to the fact that he had aced every test and exam thrown at him. As the year was winding down, a very important project would be due very soon. This project counted as twenty-five percent of the grade for that class. This was not a subjective project. It was an insightful one. All of the information required to complete it was readily available but required hours upon hours to dig and unearth the obscure facts and figures necessary to compose the report. The insight involved the presentation and Vance felt as if he had knocked it out of the park.

It was due to be handed in no later than 5:00 pm on Friday. Vance had spent an inordinate amount of time putting the finishing touches on his work and since he’d made plans to go to a movie with Abby Friday afternoon, he decided to turn in his project a day early to ensure the deadline would not be missed.

During the Friday movie, an annoying man was disturbing the experience for everyone. He started at the front and was systematically working his way towards the back, even shining a flashlight at times up and down the aisle. Needless to say, he was verbally accosted by many at the venue. Vance and Abby were just as annoyed when a flashlight was shined in his face.

“Vance. Vance! Come with me, right now!” The unidentified man conveyed in an urgent hushed tone. “It’s important!”

Puzzled, Vance rose from his seat to find out why on earth he would be sought out while on a date with his beloved. Abby followed closely until the three had exited the theater having made their way to the lobby. Vance recognized the young man but he couldn’t put a name to the face.

“Who are you and what do you want?” Vance asked in frustration. “And what’s so important it couldn’t wait?”

“You’re a hard man to find Vance. Luckily if we hurry, we still have time.”

“Time for what?” He queried.

“Time to hand in your Statistical Analysis Project. You can’t miss handing it in on time. It counts as twenty-five percent of your grade!”

“I know that. That’s why I handed it in yesterday you dummy. You pulled us out of the theater for nothing!” he seethed.

“Listen Vance. My name’s Andrew Patterson. I’m a graduate student working on my Master’s and a part-time TA working for Professor Gunther. As you know, the three books used for his course aren’t available through the bookstore, and most of the students had returned theirs to his office to be checked and credited back to their account, minus the rental fee. I was sitting yesterday at a desk in the far corner of his office behind huge piles of those books, checking them for suitability for use for next year.”

“Yeah, so? What does that have to do with me?” Vance asked impatiently.

“Everything!” Blurted the young man. “I was there yesterday afternoon when you came in to turn in your project early. I was surprised because most everyone waits and turns in theirs at the last minute. Apparently Professor Gunther either forgot that I was there or didn’t see me sitting behind those piles of books. I saw you come in, hand him your project, and leave.”

“Yeah, that’s right” added Vance.

“Man, you’ll never believe what happened AFTER you left. Professor Gunther stood there for a minute thumbing through your project with a smile on his face. Then he looked all around the room as if he was checking to see if anyone else was there. I stayed quiet as a mouse to see what he was up to. I figured he was going to meet a female undergrad in a tryst to get a better grade on her project. But it was worse, way worse than that.”

Andrew continued, “Gunther walked to the door and looked up and down the hall both ways and when it was apparent that no one else was around, he walked back near his desk, stopped at the trash can and dropped your project in the trash and said to himself, “Whoops. I don’t have a clue why you didn’t get your project to me on time Mr. Rayle. You know how particular I am about such things. Unfortunately this zero will pull your grade down significantly. You’ll still pass the course however and graduate, so don’t fret Mr. Rayle.”

Vance’s eyes grew as big as saucers. “In the TRASH!? He threw my work in the trash? But why?”

“I don’t have a clue, man. It shocked the shit out of me to witness that. Have you had some kind of serious argument or anything like that with Professor Gunther?”

“No, never. As a matter of fact, he was one of the one’s I thought I was fairly close to. I don’t get it.” Then an idea struck him. He wondered if it had something to do with the blonde-headed bitch. Her obvious animosity toward him floated her to the top of the list of suspects.

“Well, for whatever reason, he has it in for you. If your project doesn’t get turned in, it will seriously affect your grade and I just couldn’t stand by and let something like that befall one of my friends.”

“Please tell me you took my work out of the trash and put it back on his desk.” Vance urgently stated.

“I thought about doing that, but then it occurred to me that it wouldn’t change a thing. He’d just toss it later when he came across it and the result would be the same.” Added Andrew.

“I’m FUCKED! All this hard work, killing myself, frying my brain until three in the morning nearly every day and all for nothing!” Cried Vance.

“It’s not over ’til it’s over man. If we hurry, we can just make it in time for you to still hand it in on time and receive full credit for your work.”

“But like you said, if he has it in for me, he could just toss it later and still damage my grade.”

Andrew injected, “Not if there were witnesses. If the three of us run over to his office right now and watch as you hand in your project and witness him receiving it and make some kind of comment about it, then he will have no choice but to accept it and grade it accordingly. He can’t deny receiving it with two witnesses observing, especially if one of them is his own TA.”

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