You would think it wouldn’t matter anymore…it’s been a month! That no one remembers you, sitting alone in your room on September 17th at 8 pm sharp, waiting for an aca-knock that never came, even after you waited hopefully for 15 minutes thinking that you probably got it and they are just taking a long time to get to your room just to receive your rejection email at 8:16. It’s the middle of the year, NSOP is over and you have friends, it’s just water under the bridge…or so I thought.
The first time it happened, I was sitting at my very first Fed meeting—taking in the beauty of a student organization that wouldn’t reject me after a 5-hour callback…
…then I heard it.
Doooo Wop, Bop Doooo
I looked around the room. Was anyone hearing this?
Dooo Wop, Bowwwww, Doooo
Again. I looked to my neighbor, “Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
Ahhhhh, Ahhhhh Oooooh!
A vocal riff. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening…right? Sitting, shaking, I realized it’s the callback cut. That damn callback cut—the one I listened to over and over in that tiny Shapiro jail cell.
I turned back to my neighbor, “You really aren’t hearing tha-”
…I was no longer in Lerner 569.
The room was dark and damp. Breathing hard, I realized I was alone. Suddenly, there was a thud.
I whipped around to find a single chair, on which was draped a torn-up, dirty, light blue jacket, and a single piece of paper.
Very faintly, as if in the distance, I began to hear something
Shhhhhaaaa Boom Badaaadaaaa Ding Dongggggg, Ba Dang A-lang-a-lang
Instantly, I was surrounded by bodies, all in black hooded cloaks.
All singing, louder and LOUDER, pushing me towards the chair and the paper, which I now could make out as sheet music!
“Sing it” They chanted “SING IT NOW”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I couldn’t sing. “PLEASE” I yelled over the chanting “I’M JUST SICK I SWEAR I CAN SING IT. IT’S THE NSOP FLU I SWEAR IT IS”
Then everything went black. I was back in Lerner 569, at the Fed meeting as though nothing had happened.
But I still hear them. I hear that riff every time I walk into Lerner…and, truthfully, I’m still thinking of trying out again next semester—Doo womp womp womp.
