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“I’m Going to Tunnel to do Work,” Says You, Lying


On any afternoon in the beautiful autumn of the pristine purple valley, Williams students can be seen frolicking between campus buildings like busy, busy bees hard at work. Except for your lazy ass, sitting outside Tunnel City Coffee with your already-finished 16 oz. iced caramel flat white and an unopened copy of Giovanni’s Room. And it’s already 4 P.M. You’ve been here for 3 hours.


Record scratch. Freeze frame. How did I get here? you ask yourself. Panic begins to set in, remembering that you already asked for an extension on this essay once and you still hold on to the delusion that your professor would, like, want to get a beer with you, maybe as more than a student or something. If you had spent the last few hours writing your essay instead of trying to make eye contact with Jared from PoliSci 203 then you’d be done by now. But his eyes are so green.


This morning you told yourself that Tunnel would be different. All your friends said you should go to Sawyer, you’d get more work done, there’s no distractions. But you didn’t listen to them. You told yourself that this time you’d get work done at Tunnel. This time you could handle the distractions. I’ll just listen to my favorite album, Midnight in Paris (Music from the Motion Picture), on max volume, you said. No one can distract me then.


In the beginning you really did work. There were 173 words on the page after all (even excluding your MLA heading!). It all fell apart when Sarah stopped by. Sure, you can sit there for 5 minutes, you said, but I really have work to do. 45 minutes passed. She really did have a crazy night last night. How could you read Giovanni’s Room at a time like that?


And now there you sit. Flat white, empty. Essay, unwritten. Social appetite, unfulfilled. And ready to come back to work at Tunnel tomorrow at 2 P.M.

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