The Final Countdown

April ended with the Canucks as Western Conference Champs in the Cup Playoffs – but no formal acceptance letter from AUC.   It was April 27.  What the hell?  We were leaving in three days for St. Maarten to secure housing and Ja had received zero information about the acceptance process.  He did receive an e-mail from his ill-advising advisor stating 2 previous copies of his transcripts had been found. Someone had filed them under “Z-E” instead of “Z-A”.  My Facebook and Google stalking of one Festus Morgan had resulted in some photos of him dressed in a brilliant white suit and the discovery that he was a member of the Coral Gables Toastmaster Committee.  Huh.  I wondered if Festus welcomed the crowds to Fantasy Island at the beginning of each public speaking gig.

 “Wife? You up there?” My husband called up the stairs to me.  He knew I was spring cleaning my work wardrobe in our closet.

 “Babe, you know I’m up here,” I called back.  “It’s very touch and go at this point. Come up at your own risk.”  The annual purging of my work attire was a delicate process for me.  As I moved from one client to the next, the dress code seemed to change. Business casual, business formal, jeans, shorts, scrubs. I even had a client in Texas that had “Rodeo Formal Fridays”.  I think Value Village sold a lot of Halloween costumes based solely on my donations from work attire at that client site.

Mental Checklist:  eBay the Lucchese boots in my closet.  My current Canadian clients already think I talk “funny”. If I showed up in these they’d think I was Annie Oakley and run for the hills.

“Kel, I got it,” and he handed me his acceptance letter.  I dropped the boots and a sweater that was meant for someone with assets I didn’t have and grabbed the letter out of Ja’s hands.

I quickly skimmed the letter and then gave my husband a huge hug, careful not to crush the paper. “It’s about bloody time!   What took them so long? Did they use a quill and ink well to write this and then had to wait for it to dry before mailing?”

“I think it was the message I sent to Mandy Sommerside.” Ja was preening. Who was Mandy Sommerside? I was going through my mental files of anyone I may know named Mandy when Ja stopped my wheels from spinning. “Mandy is who Festus reports to, I found her information on the AUC website.”

“Shut the front door! You looked up Mr. Roarke’s manager and tattled on him,” I asked.

“Mr. Roarke?”

“Oh, remind me to show you his Facebook. Oh. My. God. Now, continue please,” I prompted.

“Last week when I sent in my transcripts…”

I interrupted, “Sent them the fourth time, you mean?”

“Yes, the fourth copy. I started thinking and what I thought was that this is total BS. Not only had I done all the leg work and made all of the phone calls and initiated all of the e-mails, my ‘advisor’ hadn’t responded. So, I looked up the e-mail address for the Admissions Director and copied her on the mail I sent to Festus about his lack of attentiveness.”

“And?”

“And, I got a response.  It may have been the fact that I chronologically documented all correspondence and lack of response and compared Festus to a used car salesman trying to sell me on a medical school that I thought was snubbing me.  Or, it was the scanned and attached copies of my acceptance letters to Ross and St. George. Either way, Ms. Mandy Sommerside promptly replied to assure me all of my documentation had been received, I was under review and I should hear something within 48 hours.”

Mental Checklist: must remember the husband is cool as a cucumber. This skill will come in handy on Black Friday.

I hugged my husband again and gave him a kiss. “Babe, I’m so proud of you. How do you feel?”

He sighed, “I felt good until I started thinking about how much stuff we have to do and how little time we really have left.”

“Well, it’s a good thing you’ve got me,” I smiled at him and twirled around. “I bought a new notebook and felt tip pens at The Meyer.  They just ooze ‘Use me, Abuse me & Write Lists on me’.  We’ve got 3 months, we can do it!”

My husband left me to finish my closet cleaning and mental checklist making while he headed downstairs to catch up on The Hockey News.  And just like that, the final countdown began.