Official Denial Part 1

On WKRPin Cincinatti Less Nessman taped an office shaped square around his desk, an act which always made sense to me. I enjoy my cramped little spaces, from snow forts to sidecars; I'd probably be a candidate for autoerotic asphyxiation if not for a lack of mechanical expertise.

All the years I spent in cubicals I dreamed of having my own office. Not in a way that would make me work any harder to earn it, but in that way I'd like to master the unicycle without all that awkward practice.

In the acceptance letter for the teaching assistantship here at BSU, I found out I would finally get my own office. What the MFA department lacks in disposable income they make up for in irony though; my office is one of a number of converted apartments. If I so chose I could grade student essays in a bathtub or just kick back and lie on kitchen linoleum, which were all the same things I could have done working in my own apartments.

That being said, the office do lend themselves some character through the residue of junk left by former graduate students. Check a filing cabinet and it wouldn't be unusual to find a banjo and a barbe head snapped off at the neck. Whose lava lamp is that? Why is there mold in the coffee pot and is it safe to use? These seem to be questions no one has answers for. No one may have touched the reference books on the shelf since beta-max was all the rage, but I'm save from almost every kind of apocalyptic event:

The staff keeps "Zombie Killer" stashed behind the recycling bin for the day when the dead will rise up and crave the flesh of the over educated living. Professional wrestler Sting acts as an operational manual of sorts.

The fear of zombies abounds on BSU campus, and by abounds I've found two people who balance hammers on their doorknobs so no zombie will sneak in.

It's a little known fact that zombies are the number three reason college professors leave their jobs (following closely being a roadie for AC/DC and using up the half of their ass that they teach with). Hence we TAs are supplied with a croquet mallet and useful passage from the Zombie Survival Guide like:

"Solanum is the virus that turns humans into undead zombies...the disease is 100% communicable (with a 100% mortality rate). Although bites are most common, infection can be obtained through open wounds brushing against each other or being splattered with remains, usually after explosions...no one has recorded a test of sexual contact with a zombie but, through other cases, is a highly probable path of infection."

Seeing as a large undercurrent of my classes last semester dealt with cannibalism and veiled necrophillic references, this proves ominous. Then again, as a man who keeps a poster of WWF’s sting as a operational manual for a croquet mallet, ominousness abounds.