Professor Fred Armstrong Van Geest works in the political "Sciences" department at Bethel University. He also, on occasion, is one-fourth of a Christianity and Western Culture, a standard class for freshmen. He is the most boring teacher alive. Not being a poli-sci major, I don't know what it could be like to take a three-hour class with him and I never wish to know.
In Christianity and Western Culture (CWC) there are four professors, each teaching a week or so and then switching out. A great deal of information is presented in the class, so that by the end of the semester there are many terms and ideas related to it. We play a game at the end of the year called Before or After.
The class would be divided into four teams, and professors would hold up cards with terms, people, or events. Teams must guess, as the name suggests, before or after. Say you get Martin Luther. He was 500 years ago, but we started in Greek history so it would be safe to assume the next term is before.
 |
| 500 years young |
My team got the term Declaration of Independence. A term at the cutting end of the class, so we confidently guessed "before." Our team's professor held up the next card.
On it was "Professor Van Geest."
We were livid. We cried foul but he was technically part of the class. Because of that trick my team lost the game and Van Geest's won.
I told my roommates about it, and we started "Geesting" each other by changing the backgrounds on our computers. It moved to physical pictures printed off and hidden away for a certain person to find. Once I hid it under my mattress but above the springs, so that my roommate, in the bed below me, would look straight up into Geest's eyes at night. Danny 1, roommate 0. The next day roommate took it and taped it to the back of another roommate's shampoo bottle, resulting in him finding while in the shower.
I got the good idea of placing Geest's face inside Faceinthehole pictures, resulting in things like "The Mona Geesta," "Osama bin Geest," and "Edward Scissorgeest." We did things like put his face in video or send pictures over the phone, but not until last night did we get the best one of all.
It started when Gabe and I went to Heritage to visit friends. I brought along "Gheestbusters" and taped it to a wall when they weren't looking. Before they found it, we discussed the possibility of Geesting Michael, my roommate. He was, at the time, working the graveyard shift at Fountain Terrace (an off-campus dorm) security. We pasted Mike's face into a Canadian Mountie and four of us piled into Rob's car. Along with Gabe, Rob, and I was Lenny.
 |
| Lenny |
We drove over discussing strategy. Would it be silent, allowing him to find it on his own time? Or would it be a Geestkrieg, slapping the picture loudly onto a window of his security car? So many options. We spotted his car idling at the end of the lot and parked on the other side, with the Fountain Terrace buildings in between us. We moved toward him, still trying to figure out what we should do. We came to the consensus of a slap-and-run, and I said it would be a good idea to test sticking the sheet of paper onto a window. We started back to Rob's car.
Around the corner came Michael in his white security car. It wasn't close, but it was coming closer. We screamed and scattered, running in the opposite direction, around the side of the buildings and behind a dumpster. I got a cramp. Much to our dismay, Michael coasted past twice within a matter of minutes. We were sure the game was up.
But he moved on and we got back to planning. His normal idling spot was on the other side of a wooden fence from us, and so we split up. Rob and I went to Rob's car as the getaway; Gabe and Lenny stayed put to launch the attack.
Rob and I got to the car without trouble, but couldn't find Michael. We craned our necks, trying to look behind us, when he rolled past. We snapped forward, keeping ourselves stock-still until he was out of sight. I called Lenny quickly and told him Mike had just gone past. "He's right next to us, on the other side of the dumpster. It's the perfect time," Lenny said. I agreed and told Rob to get the car started.
We motored to the pick-up-point and looked at the situation. Michael's white security car was indeed mere feet from the dumpster, pointed away. I called Lenny again and told him we were set, and hung up.
We waited on hooks.
One minute later, Gabe and Lenny come tearing around the corner, full tilt. We shouted at them and they made a beeline for the car's open seats. As soon as they were in Rob punched it, as much as a decade old Saab could be punched. The story was, Gabe had lifted a windshield wiper and smacked the picture down.
As we roared away, Lenny got a text that was only this: GEESTED! Lenny called him and Mike was placed on speaker phone. We laughed and reveled, and of course Mike was a good sport about it. We returned to the main campus and went to Lenny and Rob's dorm.
 |
| Us |
Then they found "Gheestbusters."
No comments:
Post a Comment