A great and terrible journey
By Chandler Walter, Humour Editor
It was a cold and rainy Tuesday when we spoke to Kyle Sherwood, the last remaining member of a line that, to him, seemed to span miles.
Sherwood had been waiting diligently in line to receive his textbooks so he could start this semester of college off on the right foot. Unfortunately for Sherwood, he joined the line at its most formidable: shortly after the first day of classes.
“I figured I would just pick them up after class,” Sherwood said. “But the line—it was just so long. I figured I would wait. And I’ve been here ever since.”
Sherwood, clad only in a T-shirt and shorts due to joining the line on a beautiful summer day, has tried his best to get his books, though every day it seems he gets further and further down the line.
“It’s my own fault, really. I’m too nice. The people in front of me let their friends in line with them, and then those people let other people cut. One time I was about two feet away from the door. That was really something.” It appears that even though Sherwood has been waiting patiently for weeks now, a new line always forms while he is sleeping against the concrete of the school, and Sherwood is simply too polite to cut in front.
We talked to Sherwood’s professors about whether the textbooks are really that necessary, or if his entire odyssey had been for naught.
“I mean, you should probably buy the textbook,” philosophy professor John Falas said. “We use it every once in a while. Do you need it to pass this class? Not really. But if you want to get an A, it really wouldn’t hurt to have it.”
When we told Falas about Sherwood, the professor merely shook his head. “I remember that kid from the first day. He was so eager to learn, so ready. It’s too bad I had to fail him; he’s been skipping class too much. Hell, I haven’t seen him for weeks. I thought he’d dropped out.”
The story was the same in each of Sherwood’s classes that were visited. Unbeknownst to him, he had failed out of all the classes he was trying to get the textbooks for.
When Sherwood heard the bad news, he seemed surprisingly chipper. “Oh well,” he said. “There’s always next semester.”
