A Change in Regularly Scheduled Programming

"Good morning, class." The students were still making their way into the lecture hall. The room itself was old, held traces of flop sweat from unprepared students of bygone days. The professor marveled how the age-old scent of fear didn't deter the students. They paid to be here. They paid to listen to him speak. He loved speaking. He looked down at his lecture notes, carefully arranging them on the lecturn and placing his thermos of coffee far away enough to avoid any spills. Today he would be discussing whether the mid-century modern chair he'd brought from home actually existed. She was a beauty with her well-maintained walnut wood and black leather. He found the chair several years ago at an estate sale. There were loads of low bids, and he waited and waited, palms becoming sweaty, stomach roiling with excitement, while the bids escalated. Eventually, though, the bidding slowed down, and when it seemed there was one bidder left, he raised his hand and made his highest, best bid. It had been enough, unanswered. He and the chair went home after the auction's close. It had been a good day, exhilarating. Now, he sat back in the chair, sipping the hot coffee from the insulated top of his thermos. He'd never be able to unwind the smell of coffee and academia as long as he lived.

As the minute hand closed on the the top of the hour, the professor deposited his cup on the dais and placed his elbows on his splayed knees. He gestured to the prop-of-the-day. His prized chair. "Do you know what I planned on discussing today?" He looked around the room, the students' faces trained on him. No hands went up. "No guesses?" He paused. "Okay. I will tell you. We were going to discuss and debate the existence of this chair."

There were a few groans from the back of the classroom. The professor waved his hands in a 'calm down' gesture. "I changed my mind." He took in the students' faces. "Instead, I want to talk about magical objects, or ordinary objects we imbue with magic."

Tired eyes lit up, downturned faces changed their orientations. The professor knew he had gripped his audience.

"I'm going to tell you about this chair, and then you're going to tell me if it's magic. That's going to be the first part of your assignment. The second part is completely unrelated and coming later. I had a whole plan for today, but I've completely changed gears, and I want to test your critical and creative thinking. Sky's the limit. No right or wrong answers."

Again, he heard groans after he mentioned 'assignment.'

He looked into the auditorium to find a face looking particularly engaged, and then a face completely uninterested. He pointed to both students. "Please approach the lectern. I want one of you to sit in my chair. Make some mental notes. Switch places. Then I want you both to leave the classroom and discuss the chair for five minutes—no more, no less." The two students each took a turn sitting on the chair. One of the students turned the chair on its side and inspected it. The other student gently stroked the walnut and patted the leather. They each took another turn sitting on the chair. They didn't speak throughout the exercise, finally nodded at each other and exited the room.

The professor next approached the white board. He withdrew dry erase markers from his jacket pockets, two handfuls. He turned his back on the class. "Is there anyone in the class whose last name begins with 'L'? Please come to the white board." Three students made their way to the professor, turning their backs on the class as well. The professor whispered something to each student. One student held all the dry erase markers. He spoke audibly to the other two students, the rest of the class seeming to eavesdrop. "You each must choose a marker, any marker." He paused again for affect. "Be very careful choosing your marker. There's a marker that will get you an 'A' for the semester, another that has no effect on your grade, and a few dead markers, which will cause you to fail." The professor pointed to the student who held all the markers. "The young lady with the markers will receive an A+ if neither of you picks the 'A' or the status quo markers. She knows which markers are which. You are welcome to ask her any questions you wish about the markers. She does not have to answer at all. She can answer truthfully…or not. You are charged with making your best choice."

The professor focused on the rest of the class. Their expressions reflected interest and eagerness to participate in the professor's demonstrations. They leaned forward in their seats, eyes sparkling. "I would like the rest of you to look in your backpacks, book bags, handbags…whatever you have. This is the part of class that's like a gameshow." There was light 'ding' that came from the professor's phone. "Would someone be so kind to retrieve the students from the hallway?" No one moved a muscle. No one wanted to miss a word from the professor. "If I have to get them myself, everyone fails for the semester." One of the boys in the back of the room popped out of his seat.

The professor waited until the chair discussion students returned. He motioned for them to come toward the front of the class in lieu of returning to their seats. They gravitated toward the chair.

"Here's the very last part of today's class. Find something, anything, in your bags. Line up along the wall based on the instructions I'm going to give you. You must separate yourselves in the following ways: if your object is larger than your hand, go to the front of the line. If your object begins with a letter in the first half of the alphabet, go to the front of the line. If your object is round or tubular, go back to your seats. If your objects are coins, join the two students by the chair. If your object doesn't fit any of those descriptions, please come to the white board. And, yes, I know some of these descriptions overlap. You must choose your path."

The professor watched as the students sorted themselves into groups. There were students from two groups trying to decide which group would occupy the front of the line; four or five students went back to their seats. Some of the students went to the front of the dais by the chair, and none of the students joined the students at the white board. "One group of students will get an automatic A- for this class. One group will write a five-page essay about the existence of the chair. One group will be forced to choose a marker. One group will choose one student to fail this class. With that in mind, feel free to reorganize yourselves."

The students who returned to their seats looked to one another and a tall, thin student, similar in looks and build to Olive Oyl, motioned for them to gather together. "Professor, we have a question for you," she called, raising her hand. The professor shuffled to the group, one hand in his jacket pocket, a light smile grazing his lips.

The student stated in a low voice, "We would like to choose the one student to fail this class." The other students in the group nodded their heads in agreement.

"Thank you. I will take your preferences into consideration." The professor made eye contact with each student, gave a brief nod, then returned to the front of the class.

All eyes were trained on the professor. "I want to tell you a little story about the chair. The chair is mid-century modern. If you're unfamiliar with the design and aesthetics, I encourage you to look on your phones after this class. I had been looking for this exact chair for quite some time, and eventually, she showed up in an auction catalog for an estate sale. We were meant to be together. I wanted this chair and had looked for it for quite some time, but the pursuit was merely background noise, and my true path was achieving tenure at this fine university. The day after I made my auction purchase, I received notice I had been granted tenure. What luck. Shortly after my tenure notice, I met my wife. A few months later, the semester concluded, and I was voted 'best professor' by the students I'd had that year. And right around that same time, I was named department chair." He smiled while recollecting the events. "I told my girlfriend, now wife, I thought maybe the chair had some kind of magical properties or was some kind of luck magnet. What do you think of that?" He turned to the students near the chair. "Two of you have examined the chair. Share your observations."

The formerly uninterested student, a female wearing an alarming amount of jewelry, looked to her counterpart, a studious young man who never failed to show up early to class in jeans, running shoes, and a t-shirt du jour. His wardrobe never varied, and his work ethic and interest in academics never waned. He gave her a nod to share their observations. "We anticipated this chair may be a magical object, or perhaps the professor had special feelings and events centered around his acquisition of the chair. In the course of our examination, we touched every inch of the chair, and we felt a vibration from it. It was an intermittent vibration, without a regular cadence. At the time, we thought the occurrence odd, but with the professor's story, we feel there may be significance in the vibration. We're not saying the chair is a magical object. We're saying there's something odd about the chair, and we're also saying there could be a connection between the chair and the professor's good fortune, or it may have been a coincidence. The professor likely worked hard for tenure, and he's long been a favorite of students, and when he met his wife, he may have been in the right place at the right time. We are saying, we do not have enough evidence to support the chair being a magical object. Any magical properties imbued are strictly from the fond memories and coincidental timing of good fortune. We would like to investigate more to understand the vibration phenomenon."

The professor eyed the male student. "Do you concur?"

"I do," he stated.

"Very well. You each earn an A for the semester. The rest of you with the coins, flip your coins now and allow them to land on the floor."

Coins flipped, and there was the clink of metal on hard surfaces while the coins landed. "If your coin landed heads up, you get an A- for this class. If your coin landed tails up, your grade remains status quo." Two of the students threw heads, and two threw tails. "Please put your names on the white board and your grade next to your name."

The professor's gaze found the Olive Oyl-adjacent student. "Who does your group feel should fail the class?" The students with round and tubular objects, conferred briefly before naming Chase Rogers, a tall young man who spent hours in the gym and was the school's football team captain and well-liked by the university's student body.

Chase's face registered shock. He was an average student, and failing the class would result in his not being able to play football. As a freshman, he met Olive Oyl at a party, and one thing led to another with some relatively innocent lip-locking and fumbling with each other's clothing. After the interlude, he told Olive Oyl, "I'll call you," without having any intention to follow up with said phone call. She waited and watched her phone for days after, but Chase's name never graced her phone screen.

"Chase, I'm the final arbiter. You can fail, or you can draw a marker. What do you choose?" The professor beckoned to the girl with the markers.

"I'd like to take a marker." Chase looked at the girl with the markers. "Is it okay if I ask questions?"

"Certainly. I'd be disappointed if you didn't." The professor waved his hand in front of the markers.

Chase looked at the markers, then glanced at the girl's face. "What's your name?"

"I'm Anna."

"Anna, I would like a marker that's not dead. Can you please hand me a marker that's not dead?"

"I can hand you a marker that's not dead. Would you like me to select a marker that's not dead?"

"Yes. Please select a marker that's not dead, and hand it to me."

She handed over the marker. The professor pointed to the white board. "Please test the marker."

Chase wrote his name on the board and sighed in relief. The professor noted the ink color was orange.

"Very good, Anna. Very good, Chase. Orange earns you status quo. You don't fail, and you don't get an A. Well done." The professor took in the faces in Olive Oyl's group briefly, before speaking. "I sent two groups to the front of the line. How did you decide to organize yourselves? Does each group have a spokesperson?"

Each group quickly identified a spokesperson, and the two approached the professor. One of the students held a blank sheet of paper. The other held a piece of gum still in its foil wrapper. The student with the sheet of paper nodded at the student with the gum. She worried the edges of the foil in her fingers. "We made two lines, side by side. You didn't say we had to be in one line. You just said to go to the front of the line, so we made two."

The professor clapped his hands in delight. "Very good, very good. Your groups will each earn an A- for this class." The two groups of students appeared to be visibly relieved and simultaneously pleased. The professor again took in Olive Oyl's group. He pointed to them. "Your group will write a five page essay on whether my chair is a magical object. Each page should have no more than 250 words. I want the word count for each page hand-written on the top of each sheet. There should be a minimum of 100 words per sheet."

The students seemed disappointed they were given an assignment and not an instant reward, but they were equally happy not to have been given a failing grade.

"And now we have our last two groups of students. You all are going to choose a marker. You may ask Anna any questions before making your selections. Once you have selected your marker, you will test it on the white board. Please begin making your selections."

The remaining students gathered around Anna, asked questions, and made selections. Each marker worked. There were no dead markers. Anna and the professor grinned widely at one another. There was a single marker remaining. It was red.

"Anna, would you mind testing the final marker?" She wrote her name on the board. The professor scratched his chin and asked, "Which marker was the 'A' marker, and which were the status quo markers?"

Anna answered, "The red marker was the 'A' marker, and the rest were status quo markers. The students were convinced there were dead markers and asked for markers that weren't dead."

"Thank you, Anna. Everyone please return to your seats." The students did as asked. Their attention was keenly fixed on the professor.

"Here's your real assignment. I don't want papers about my chair being imbued with magic, perceived or real. I'm very happy you thought about it, though. What I want you to bring to the next class is two to four paragraphs about punishment, rewards, and perceived punishment. Just two to four paragraphs. We meet again tomorrow. Please bring your completed work with you." The students didn't leave their seats while the professor retrieved his coffee cup, draining the remains. He returned his lecture notes to his messenger bag, removing a Granny Smith apple in the process. He shined the apple on the lapels of his jacket before taking a bite. "Do you know how I reward myself after a stimulating lecture?"

The students remained silent. A hand went up. Chase Rogers. "Yes, Chase?"

"A nap?"

The professor guffawed. "Sometimes I do take a nap, but no, I like to have an apple. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, I suppose. Maybe I'm imbuing all these apples with magical properties." He gave a small chuckle, and under his breath the professor continued, "And perhaps an apple a day brings the students back for another lecture."