UC Davis first-year was shooting for As, but found herself shooting for the stars instead
First-year biological sciences major Anne Williams found herself in a conundrum last Thursday while studying on the fourth floor of Shields Library.
An unknown guy materialized to take the desk behind her, wearing AirPods and basketball shorts. “Damn, it’s not playing,” she heard him whisper to himself.
Immediately as she began to work, a familiar whistle resounded. Adam Levine soon began to serenade the shocked audience as “Moves Like Jagger” began:
“Just shoot for the stars if it feels right/ And aim for my heart if you feel like it…”
Anne found herself checking the calendar on her phone to ensure she hadn’t been launched back to 2011.
“Take me by the tongue and I’ll know you/ Kiss me till you’re drunk and I’ll show you all the moves like Jagger…”
Anne whipped her head around, nervously looking for help. The room was empty. She knew that she should tap him on the shoulder. But he had blocked himself off from the world, nesting his head in his hands and tapping his foot to the beat of the song. It would just be rude to interrupt him. Before she knew it, it was Christina Aguilera’s verse: “You want to know how to make me smile?”
No, not really, Anne thought to herself.
She sat through Adam Levine’s last command to take him by the tongue as the closing whistle signaled the song’s end. Anne let out an audible sigh of relief and realized now that she was finally able to think clearly again.
Her reprieve was short-lived as that familiar whistle began once more, a signal of her journey back to unknown horrors. “My ego is big/ I don’t give a sh-t.”
But I do, Anne thought. She looked back at the unknown guy — he was now sending what seemed to be like a very important email. She couldn’t interrupt him. That would just be inconsiderate.
She sat through another round of the song, knowing that it would be over soon. However, the closing whistle soon bled into the opening whistle, and she started to lose track of time as one typically does when listening to “Moves Like Jagger.”
Hours passed. She wasn’t sure whether she was on the fourth or the four-hundredth listen. She had an out-of-body experience. Perhaps the last 19 years of her life were a fever dream leading up to this point.
She was aware that the sun was rising outside. She was aware that she was hungry and probably hadn’t eaten in days. But each time those thoughts came, so did “Moves Like Jagger” and she was its victim once again.
“Just shoot for the stars…”
Written by: Kelsey Stewart — kcstewart@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
