487. How to Write

I walked into the first day of the Writing 101 seminar, taught by Professor Broysen. He waited patiently for us to take our seats, and then he started writing something on the chalkboard.

At the top, he scribbled “TOOLS FOR WRITING.” This was good. I was going to get a lot out of this class, I could already tell.

When I had been a bank teller, the tool I used every single day was money. The bank supplied this. When I was a hostess at the seafood restaurant, the main tools I used were the reservation book and the phone. Again, provided by my employer. When I worked at the department store doing gift-wrapping, guess what my tools were? That’s right: wrapping paper and scissors, courtesy of the management.

I craned my neck to see what he had written so far. He was a large man, and his broad shoulders blocked the board. I tried to guess what it could be: pen? paper? typewriter? pencil? dictionary?

He finally stepped to the side. He had written

A.................................. W

..................C ...................F .......................Z

......R..................... B .............X ..........N........ V

Q ..............J ...............O .............L

..D ..................H ......M ..................Y

S............... I................ E.......... G

.............................K ........................P

U..................... T

As far as I could tell, these were just letters, not even real true words. I looked around to gauge others’ reactions. They appeared as shocked as I was. I raised my hand.

“Yes, you in the red shirt,” he pointed at me.

“Professor, uh, my dad just wrote quite a large tuition check, and on behalf of him, uh, I am expecting more material to work with. Maybe some actual words like palaver, or redundant, or angst? These letters, well … did you get them on sale or something? They don’t even have anything attached to them.”

A murmur went through the group. I could tell everyone agreed with me.

“What is your name?” Professor Broysen asked me.

“MOV,” I replied.

“MOV, my point is that under our current parameters at this university, and, to be frank, budget cuts, we are only able to offer you the basics. Twenty-six of them, to be exact.”

I started to cry. I didn’t want to, but I could feel hot tears of despair on my cheeks.

Someone else spoke. “Professor, what do you expect us to do with these letters?” He said these letters like you might say nuclear waste.

“Well, that is the beauty of these letters: their versatility. You can make any words from them. And, as you might already know, words are the building blocks of books.”

I hated it when teachers did this. Went from the introductory thing—ZOOM—to the advanced part. Letters … books!

Arms shot up around the room.

“Professor!”

“Excuse me!”

“Sir!”

“I have something to say!”

Then someone blurted out what we all wanted to ask: What about sentences? and paragraphs? stories? chapters? Huh? What about those?

“You will figure it out,” he winked, “This is college, people. Take these tools, these alphabet letters, and create something great.”

I walked out, depressed. I went straight to the Administrative Office.

“Excuse me?” I said to the secretary. “I would like to petition to change my major. To accounting.”

I hear they give out numbers.

MOV