BREAKING NEWS: Class ended five minutes ago

‘Why are we still here,’ ask many students

By Rebecca Peterson, Humour Editor

This is the Other Press news correspondent Pete Beckson, coming to you live from a fifth floor computer lab. Reports are coming in from every available timepiece in the vicinity, leaving us to come to one inevitable conclusion: This class did, in fact, end five minutes ago, at 9:20 p.m.

“The prof just opened a new Powerpoint presentation,” whispers student Kerri Awn. She tries to quietly start packing up her things, clearly hoping the professor will take the hint, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “I don’t think he realizes what time it is. I’m going to miss my bus!”

Many students are starting to get nervous in here, glancing to one another and whispering in small groups. No one seems brave enough to point out the time to the professor, who’s now beginning a lecture on the next chapter of the $400 textbook the class was told to purchase at the start of the semester. There’s a chance we could be stuck in here for the next hour.

“Doesn’t he have somewhere to be, too?” asks a student behind me. He’s tapping his pen nervously against his desk. “Like, I’m assuming he has to sleep at some point. Or eat. This is a three-hour class and we haven’t had a break, I can’t be the only one here who’s starving.”

He isn’t. I’m seriously considering gnawing my own arm off for sustenance, and judging by the somewhat horrifying sounds coming from the other side of the room, at least one of our classmates has resorted to cannibalism.

But look! A brave student has put her hand up. Could this mark an end to our suffering?

The prof barely glances her way, and makes the following statement:

“Please hold all questions until the end of class.”

There’s a solid chance that we’re all going to die in here.

If anyone is listening to this report, PLEASE come save us. It is now 10 minutes since class has “ended,” and the situation is getting desperate. There are 21 souls in this room, all praying for divine intervention. I barely have the strength to continue this broadcast.

There’s a new development from the south-west corner. It appears the students there have elected a revolutionary leader. A flag is being drawn on binder paper and taped to a ruler, and a small band of students, with desperation in their eyes, look ready to overthrow the prof and make a break for freedom—

The prof stops speaking, and everyone holds their breath.

He issues the following statement: “Oh, would you look at that! It’s 9:35. Class ended 15 minutes ago everyone, why are you all still here?”

Students are falling to the floor, weeping. The burgeoning revolution seems to be utterly squashed by this statement. It appears the situation has resolved itself. I would stick around to gather more information, but I gotta get home—How to Get Away With Murder is on tonight.

This has been Pete Beckson with the Other Press news, New Westminster.