Last week your ever-humble hostess spent much of her time drifting in and out of fever-riddled delirium brought on by the simultaneous contraction of both a sinus and respiratory infection. The horror! Being the trooper that she is, though, she managed to force herself by sheer will alone to regain consciousness and strength long enough to endure an afternoon of sheer drudgery – namely her statistics homework.
After laying waste to about four boxes of kleenex and a half gallon of orange juice, our heroine trudges dutifully into the computer room and prepares for the long hours of toil that await her. She logs into her classroom only to find – What? Classroom blocked? What kind of lunacy is this? What alternate reality has taken hold during her slumber?
A quick review of recent e-mail turns up a clue. A note from the financial aid office reads: “Contact me A.S.A.P.” Curious.
A little more detective work uncovers a delinquent balance of nearly $5k in the tuition account of yours truly. A balance that should have been covered by a loan. A loan that the financial aide department assured me had been approved and taken care of. A loan that I had to apply for personally online after 3 weeks of inefficiency on the part of the Financial Aide Office. A loan that only took me 48 hours to submit and gain approval for. Curious indeed.
In a state of somewhat hazy cognizance, I ring up the F. A. O. to inquire of the situation. The phone rings. And rings. And rings. I finally catch on that it’s the weekend. That means I’ve been out of it for four days now. Oh, and they don’t answer phones on the weekend. Nobody is there. Hm. I wonder if I’ll get to make up my homework?
My teacher was shocked to find out that I couldn’t access her class. She was worried, and had assumed maybe I was ill (quite true, but not a limiting factor) and subsequently gave me a couple extra days to finish my work (assuming I could gain access to my class).
Monday morning, I stumble out of bed, my sole mission for the day to contact Financial Aide and clear up the whole situation. At this point I’ve got a whole week’s worth of work to finish, as well as a new week’s assigment to start. A quick call verifies that I shall not accomplish my mission today. They’re closed. Argh.
Finally, finally finally this morning I get a call through to the F. A. O. and what do I learn? While it’s true my loan was approved and I was cleared for class (3 weeks ago), they have since lost the co-borrower addendum and payment was suspended. Let me repeat for the hard of hearing: They lost some of the paperwork, so they’re booting me out of class until I come up with another copy.
Jesus Fucking Christ on a cracker! In what fucked up crack-smoking alternate universe does any of that make sense? Apparently I failed in my mind-reading and babysitting duties to the point that I couldn’t manage to keep the lobotomized gutter-whores in their employ from using my loan application to wipe their ass.
The entirety of the financial aide process has been foisted upon my shoulders, with their stepford-clones existing only to confuse and befuddle, FAFSA and Sallie May be damned!
Assuming I can track down my biological parental unit and tranquilize him long enough to submit to yet another interrogation of name, rank, and serial number, and assuming that information can be then conveyed at the speed of light to the F. A. O. and involved lending institutions, all best estimates place me back in class no earlier than Thursday morning. Almost a full week since I was blocked from class. I’ll have almost 9 days worth of work (30 hours) to pack into a span of roughly 48 hours (not counting the workday).
It’s going to take either a miracle, or a year’s supply of liquid crack to help me acheive this monumental feat. I would break down and cry if I weren’t so dehydrated.
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