YOUR Swan Song continued

Now, though, you’re very much in the moment, and the moment requires that you get into your office, which requires one of keys on the chain you couldn’t find that morning, so you ask the wonderful-in-all-ways-you-are-not administrative assistant who’s supplying the tests, and in a matter of seconds you’ve got the key and are heading towards your office around the corner.

            There you see your office mate, who’s left the door open.

            “Oh!  It’s open!  I didn’t have to admit that I had lost my keys!”  you say, and he says, “We were just talking about you.”

            No time to find out what they were saying, but you repeat the comment about your “swan song.”  Then you get a couple of Longman dictionaries—the big, bulky kind you used to teach the students how to use before no one in their right mind wanted anything but electronic devices.  They’re not allowed to use electronic devices in their comp writing, so you put the hefty dictionaries in your trunk-on-wheels.  The students have been asked to bring pencils, pens, and writing paper, but you know that some will have forgotten, so you pack a few extras. 

            You sign for the packet of tests enclosed in plain brown envelopes of the inner-office kind, and you pack them into your trunk-on-wheels, which you don’t even try to close.  Then you head to the building on the northwest side of campus, where you find the door locked.  Somehow, though, there are students inside, so they let you in, and you call Buildings and Grounds to ask that the front doors be open.