I’m coughing just thinking about it
By ALLISON KELEHER — adkeleher@ucdavis.edu
Me and all of my faithful readers can agree on one thing: The Teaching and Learning Complex (TLC) is nasty. As I ascend the stairs, I can see the clumps of dust and hair floating around at my feet. One time, I almost tripped over one because it was so big.
This matter is near and dear to my heart, because I love vacuuming. One time, I dreamed about sneaking in there in the middle of the night with my vacuum to finally give the TLC a good clean. There’s something satisfying about a vacuum cleaning up immense amounts of dust and hair all at once. After this dream, the idea of cleaning the TLC has plagued my mind. The other day, I woke up holding my vacuum and my keys — that’s how I knew it was getting serious.
So, I began plotting. I’ve conducted heists before but this one was going to be tough solely because of the vacuum. For context, my vacuum is bright pink, essentially ruining the aura of mystery. However, it enhances my aura of cutesy, so that makes up for it. Rather than fight it, I leaned into the pink and wore a monochromatic pink outfit to pair with my vacuum. After taking several mirror selfies, I headed out on my mission.
The plan was simple: Hide out in one of the TLC classrooms under a desk until everyone leaves. Walking in wasn’t easy, because so many people loved my outfit and begged me for details. After valiantly fighting off my fans, I found an empty classroom on the third floor to camp out in.
I brought some snacks for the wait, including an iced coffee, baby carrots, Trader Joe’s soup dumplings and a Snickers bar. While eating the soup dumplings, I feared that the slurping would give me away — but I got lucky. After my feast, I passed out into a food coma for several hours. When I finally woke up, I was upset with myself because I lost valuable vacuuming time. After a brief scolding in the mirror, I shot to my feet and grabbed my vacuum.
As I inched out of the classroom, I scanned the hallway for anyone who would try to stop my mission. Thankfully, no one was there. Due to my lost time, I decided to focus on the front steps since those were the most nasty. Dragging my vacuum behind me, I made my way downstairs to the contaminated area.
We made our way to the front and I got to vacuuming. As I turned it on, the noise made me worried that the mountains of dust had already clogged my vacuum. It was a shrill, squeaky noise that almost hurt to hear. When I knelt down to inspect the vacuum, I almost fainted from shock because it wasn’t a dust clump — it was a dust bunny. During normal business hours, those phrases mean the same thing, but at 3 a.m. in the TLC, there are living, breathing dust bunnies.
This dust bunny was squeaking up a storm because I had trapped it in my pink vacuum. I tentatively touched the dust bunny, and it growled at me. I retracted my hand quickly out of fear of a bite, but then I remembered that dust can’t bite you. So, I got a firm grip on the bunny and pulled it out of the vacuum. This bunny had a particularly large tail, causing it to get stuck.
As I placed it on the dirty ground, it hopped away quickly into the darkness. After this interaction, I decided that maybe it was a good idea to leave, since it’s clear that I’m sleep deprived. But then, a hoard of dust bunnies came charging at me out of the darkness, causing a cloud of dust to fill the air. The dust filled my lungs, and I started coughing relentlessly.
This caused the bunnies to stop in their tracks since I was clearly not a threat. At this moment, they were able to get a good view of my pathetic image: Hunched over and coughing, I was an ugly thing to behold. However, this coughing fit subsided after a moment which allowed me to stand up straight.
I got a clear view of the bunny army, which was fairly large considering that the TLC has a lot of dust to contribute. However, as I gazed upon them, the bunnies started to look up at me differently. Like I was one of them. I decided to accept the role as their fearless leader and began leading them through the TLC. I have a feeling that my monochromatic pink outfit gave me the resemblance of the notorious pink energizer bunny. Clearly that was the reason since they accepted me as their leader so quickly.
In the end, these bunnies really shouldn’t have trusted me as their leader. I guided them to the back of the TLC where I coached them to jump off of the railing to their death. Sadly, this was for the greater good, because now the TLC is clean as a whistle. But now, I wait anxiously for their revenge.
Written by: Allison Keleher — adkeleher@ucdavis.edu
Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
