Shh!

Wednesdays are long days for me.
I have lectures at 9am and 1pm, plus a 5pm tutorial.
So a bit like a regular working day.
But with disproportionately large tea breaks.

I am trying to discipline myself not to waste the intervening hours between classes chatting with my mates in the Arts Café.
It's proving difficult.
I could quite happily spend all day there, chewing over life while munching on a custard cream.
But the reality of my not-so-robust financial situation has helped drive me away from the over-priced tea and biscuits and towards the library.
That and my expanding waistline.

I've mentioned before that the Arts Café is expensive.
They even have the temerity to charge 50c for a cup of hot water thereby scuppering the thrifty bring-your-own teabag ploy.
Capitalist thugs.

I have carved out a nice routine for my library sessions.
I always head for the same group of desks and select one near a socket.
I plug in my laptop.
Get out my books.
Put in my earphones.
And turn on some music.
I generally spend the best part of the next hour browsing facebook and google-stalking ex-boyfriends who haven't yet succumbed to the lure of social networking sites.
I recognise it's procrastination.
I'm not even interested in what any of my ex-boyfriends might be up to.
Well, not very.
Maybe one or two.
But at least it allows me to defer the act of studying.

Today, I choose the wonderfully soothing 'Bach's Cello Suites'.
It's fabulous music to study to.
No lyrics to interrupt the flow of academic thought.
Ahem.
But there appears to be something wrong with the volume on my new Mac.
It was an excessively generous gift from San Fran Man and I would be crushed if I had somehow managed to damage it already.
The music is barely audible through my earphones.
I check the mute button.
No, that's not the problem.
I check the volume on the laptop keyboard and keep clicking until it is at full tilt.
Some improvement but still not right.
And it should be hurting my ears at that level.
I go to the iTunes application and check the volume settings there.
They are at the mid-point so it should be sufficient.
Even so, I slide the gauge to maximum.
It's slightly better but there definitely appears to be a fault.

I notice some of the students at the surrounding desks have started to shuffle around uncomfortably in their seats.
Like they have ants in their pants.
'What's wrong with them?' I think indignantly.
The chap seated opposite me lifts his head and peeks at me over the desk-divider.
He's a woolly-headed sport-jock type.
I look up and he gives me a withering glare.
I didn't think jocks were capable of such non-macho facial expressions.
I frown at him in a way that says 'What?'
He eyes my laptop pointedly then looks at me again.

Then I see it.
The tail-end of my earphones.
Sitting on the desk.
Beside the laptop.
Instead of in it.

I frantically grab it and quickly shove it into the socket.
I nearly burst my eardrums in the process.
I almost jump out of my seat with the excruciating pain that's searing through my head.
But thankfully I manage not to scream.
I hit a variety of keyboard buttons manically until I find the right one and am able to resume normality to my poor auditory senses.

At least I selected a classy piece of music with which to annoy my fellow scholars.
And not 'Smack my Bitch up'.
It could so easily have been much worse.
Not that I own anything by The Prodigy.
Nevertheless, I am suitably mortified.

©Alacoque Doyle