Here at The California Aggie, we’ve covered some intense graduation stories. We thought we’d seen it all — police arresting walking grads for public intoxication, keynote speakers advising students to sell their bodies online, apes from the primatology lab escaping and attempting to take over the school while riding cows and horses, nearly succeeding if not for a daring flank from the Davis carriage division. This year though, one student proved us wrong.
“My name is Jeff Spacey, graduating fourth-year, and I just woke up from a lecture-induced coma.”
You heard that right. Jeff Spacey has spent the majority of his college career in a rare form of coma that scientists are calling a “four-year space out.” For the last four years, Spacey has spaced out in every lecture. It started during his first class at UC Davis, Astronomy 10G.
“The last thing I remember is the professor saying the word ‘space,’ and from there it’s just a blur,” the “Space Cadet,” as his friends refer to him, said. “Since I woke up, I’ll get flashes every so often, an interesting concept or a quote, but other than that I hardly remember anything. I’m just glad this disorder didn’t affect my college career too much.”
At this point you’re probably thinking, “What in the damn hell? There’s no way Space Cadet could get through college in a coma! I’m never reading The Aggie again!!1!” However, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
“One of the most common symptoms we find in patients suffering from the ‘four-year space-out’ is actually unconscious retention,” Dr. Doc Terr told The Aggie. “Usually, if we press patients enough, we can get them to recall at least some basic facts from their time spacing out. Even more interesting is that non-learning memory seems completely unaffected.”
So, how do you like that, doubters? An actual doctor proved you wrong. Don’t ever hypothetically question me again unless you want another verbal annihilation.
Jeff Spacey may never fully recover from these four years, but he is confident he will eventually move past it.
“I mean, how much of this stuff was I supposed to remember, anyways?”
Written by: Conner Shaw — cjshaw@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
