Imagine yourself late at night craving a spoonful or two of the fabulous fat-free Carvel ice cream from Food Court. You are in the middle of reading your Maimonides assignment for your religion culminating experience and suddenly you feel like a mystic as you have visions of chocolate sprinkles and M&Ms atop your swirled dessert. You walk from your favorite study spot to Thayer and from half way around the room see "the machine."
You approach the machine and there right before your very eyes lies the key to your heart in varieties of vanilla and chocolate. You watch the machine carefully as you pull the lever and remember the days of your childhood when soft ice cream was a novelty, and most ice cream parlors were still serving hard ice cream via the metal scoop.
As you make your initial ascent into the cashier line you reach into your pocket to pull out your ID. You dig deeper into the buried treasures that lurk in the pocket of your well worn rarely washed Levi's when you realize that the ID is gone. No problem -- you check your left back pocket and then your right front pocket and then you open your jacket pockets confident that you will find the glossy card that bears that oh-so-attractive snapshot of your face. Suddenly as you look behind you the line is getting longer and you start to feel warm.
And then boom! Panic. Red alert. Code red. Panic begins to set in, and you feel as though you are in the middle of a major crisis. Alarms are ringing, red lights are flashing, and the cashiers are pointing at you in disgrace. The other students are laughing at you as they begin to chant your name in unison. Finally you succumb to the pressure and run out of the back door of Thayer hoping that no one will recognize you.
You walk home feeling disappointed in your inability to manage your ID. Then the interior monologue begins: What is it about you lately anyway? You can write three 10-page religion papers in one term but you can't manage a simple card. You can jump out of an airplane at 10,000 feet, you can sing to an audience of 500 people, but you can't get the ID thing right. Like it's really that difficult anyway. You take the card out of your wallet and you give it to the DDS cashier to swipe. Then you take the card (hopefully the overflow of your drink has not spilled onto it making it wet), and you stick it back into your wallet. If you're lucky the ID stays there until its next call of duty at Thayer, Collis or the Hop.
Maybe you'll go into hiding. Maybe you'll go into therapy. Maybe you'll just purchase what you hope will be your last new ID with only six months left until graduation. But then just as you are writing yourself the note to go to the Validine office tomorrow morning before drill you see this thing sticking out of your Philosophy textbook. Could it be? You hear yourself imagining this ridiculous situation. Am I that lucky to have been graced just this once from having to pay yet another $20? You gently flip open the textbook to see if you what you hope is waiting for you is actually waiting for you.
And it is! Your ID. It's rescued. It is found. You begin to laugh. You begin to cheer. You begin to jump up and down in your room and explode with joy. "My ID! My ID, Thank God almighty I found My ID."
You kiss it gently as you tuck that precious glossy card back into your wallet and say thanks for its discovery. You promise to be a better person and to study harder. You climb back into bed pick up Maimonides and begin to read. Three minutes later your roommates are awaken by your snoring. But who cares? You sleep soundly knowing that your ID is safely home.
