Head throbbing, throat aching, voice going coarse, and my bottle of anger is full again.

My weekend was crappy, worse than usual but I’m not going to complain. I’m going to let it out another way, a story. I’ve weaved my crappy weekend into a tale between two roommates, Leslie and Sarah. First, I should apologize for this incredibly long post (I can’t help it) but anyway, enjoy the dramatic tale. 🙂

Leslie sat before her computer on a Saturday morning, studying for an afternoon exam. After more than 6 months, she still hadn’t adjusted to fact that she had to find her own time to complete the exams for her classes. At least this one’s open-book, open-notes, she thought happily. She wouldn’t had to go through the tedious process of making a half-page note-card.

By noon, her stomach was growling. She often skips breakfast to save time on studying. So she quickly went to the pantry, pulled a ramen from a plastic bag with her name on it, and popped it into a bowl. She dumped the tiny bag of soup mix, added the water, and popped it into the microwave. By the time she finished with her ramen, she heard a click of the locks. Sarah was home.

“Hey, Les, can you help me with these groceries?” Sarah was carrying at least six bags of food.

Leslie took four bags and hurried to the kitchen. “What are you trying to do? Feed an army?” She dropped the bags on the counter.

“They’re for both of us, duh.” Even then, it would be too much. Leslie went to the sink and clean up while Sarah put her purse on the chair. “Listen, I need your help with something.”

“What?” Leslie asked as she wiped her hands dry.

“I have this paper due Monday and I’m wondering if you can help me since, well, your writing is better mine.”

“What is it on?” Leslie asked quickly.

“It’s a research paper, 6-9 pages. I don’t know what’s on yet. The instructor wasn’t clear.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait. I have to go take the exam.”

“Then go,” Sarah replied. “We can talk about it when you get home.”

Three hours later, Leslie finally came home. The exam took much longer than she had thought. It was 24 questions on 30 pages and each question took forever to complete. Tired but still full of energy, she knocked on Sarah’s door and almost instantly, Sarah wrenched the door open, shoving a paper in Leslie’s face.

“You see this?” Sarah shrieked. Leslie grabbed the paper and looked at it carefully. It was the rubric for the assignment. “It makes completely no sense! He doesn’t explain anything. He just gives the assignment and expects us to understand it at a snap of a finger.”

“The paper said to pick four or more variables affecting the operating environment. What kind of operating environment?” Sarah led her to her laptop sitting on the desk and showed her a PowerPoint presentation on Argentina. “What does Argentina have to do with anything?”

“He assigns us each a country and we’re supposed to apply the variables.”

Leslie frowned. “I don’t know. What do you want me to do exactly?” Sarah handed her an index card. On it are the words, “political, military, economics, social, information, infrastructure.”

“These are the things I need you to research and write about. I will write the rest.” She switched the screen to a word document. “It’s all formatted. All you have to do is fill in the information.”

By then, Leslie only vaguely understood the assignment. “And why can’t you do this yourself?”

“Do I look like I have the time to do both?” Sarah snapped and Leslie threw her hands up and retreated to her room. “I want this done by tomorrow.” Sarah called as Leslie shut the door to her bedroom, she leaned against the door for a minute and sighed.

Sarah always does this, wait until the last minute and just snaps her fingers. Just like that, Leslie to the rescue. She was like one of those nerds that does bully’s homework. Leslie went to her computer and opened the file Sarah had just sent her over dropbox.

That night, to decompress from the long exam, Leslie decided to watch a few shows on TV. She’s already had two pages completed. Lounging on the living room couch, Sarah joined her. “So, roomie, have you completed my paper yet?”

“Not yet, almost though.” Leslie replied.

“May I make some suggestions though?” Leslie nodded. “Focus more on how each variable affect the environment.” Leslie wasn’t exactly listening but Sarah kept blathering on. If you want me to do your assignment, don’t tell me what to write. I have my own methods. She thought.

Leslie screamed when she opened her eyes the next morning to find Sarah hovering above her. “What are you doing?”

“It’s 8, time to get up.” Leslie glanced over at her alarm clock, it was only 7:30. She moaned and sank her head back on her pillow. “Come on, Les, I want it done by 10 am. You do want to have time to do you own thing, don’t you?”

She went to the window and opened the blinds, the light streaming into the room made Leslie shrank and curled. Leslie groaned. “Fine, I’m up!” Leslie stumbled out of bed over to her computer. She yawned and clicked open the file. It looked like Sarah had updated it, she added a few more sections and miraculously, it was completed.

Groggily, she made her way to the kitchen to scour the fridge for breakfast. She settled with a yogurt and ate it over the sink, her head was still throbbing from the blast of sunlight. She stumbled back into her room and sat before the computer, the words blurred and the more she read, the more it was becoming more puzzling.

“Is it done yet?” Leslie jumped, suddenly realizing Sarah was behind her. Had she been watching me this whole time? Leslie wondered. This was beginning to feel like Sarah’s got a gun to her head forcing her to write.

“Almost.” Leslie answered.

“Almost?!” Sarah shrieked. “It’s been two hours!”

Leslie rubbed her temples and said tiredly. “I’m doing the best I can. It’s not that easy, you know.”

“Hurry up,” Sarah snapped. “I’ve been waiting on you all morning and you can’t even write two paragraphs? I am way faster than that.”

Leslie bolted up, “Fine, then write it yourself. I’m tired of your bossing around. My head hurts, I’m not in the mood.”

“Fine!” Sarah screamed. “I don’t need your help. I will write it myself.”

“Fine!” Leslie shouted back and pushed Sarah from her room and locked her room. They didn’t exchange a single word the remainder of the day. Leslie worked on her own homework. Now and then, she could hear Sarah rehearsing in her room, always the same line and this is how their story ends (for now) because do stories ever end?