Once upon a time, there was a girl named Ashley. Actually, Ashley was a young woman, as she was a senior in high school. She was excited about graduating from Barkman High School in May. Ashley had spent the last four years toiling away, diligently completing her coursework and performing well on tests and final exams. She had a 3.8 GPA, which qualified her for membership in the National Honor Society.

Ashley�s school was on the block schedule, meaning she took four classes from August through December and four more classes from January through May. Ashley needed twenty-six credits to graduate, and she had twenty-four already. All she needed now was one last English class and another science.

To fill out her schedule second semester, Ashley joined the newspaper staff and a new class the school had created for members of its prestigious government team. That class was called Current World Affairs and it was a perfect fit for Ashley, who was on the government team. The class was designed to give the team time to prepare and practice for competition; it was sort of a conditioning P.E., but for an academic team as opposed to an athletic team.

Ashley�s team had won their state competition and was preparing for their trip to nationals in Washington, D.C., when they got the news that their teacher had been forced to resign. That same day, they learned that the D.C. trip would cost them nearly $36,000, which they had just over a month to raise.

The school, unable to find any way to pad its own pocket on the government team�s back, refused to give the team any money. They thought the Current World Affairs class was more than enough of a contribution to the team�s success.

However, without their coach, and thanks to the fact that Barkman�s counselors dumped all the potheads, fake cheerleaders, and underclassmen in with the team, the students found it difficult to prepare for the competition.

This limited study time and fundraising to after school and on weekends, where it competed for attention with Ashley�s part-time job blah blah blah, homework for other classes blah blah blah, and her many social activities blah blah blah fishcakes.

Another distraction was the fact that the team was comprised entirely of seniors, who were looking forward to graduation and were preparing for college. There just weren�t enough hours in the day.

Ashley�s best friend was On-Tamara, who quit yearbook after one semester and then took the filler electives for the rest of her high school career. Finally, On-Tamara had reached the end of her rope. Her counselor gave her the option of taking Advanced Basketweaving or becoming a teacher�s aide.

On-Tamara chose the teacher�s aide position and didn�t look back�until she got placed in an English class that already had three other aides, one of whom had given up coming after the first day.

There was never anything for her to do as an aide; after all, collating isn�t rocket science and it rarely takes three people.

Tamara took this issue up with the Barkman administration one day during lunch.

"Maybe there wouldn�t be so little to do if there were fewer office aides," cried the administration, shocked that there were a staggering thirty-six teacher aides on the rolls.

"Maybe there wouldn�t be so many teacher aides if you let students come for half a day," On-Tamara shot back. "Maybe there�d be less overcrowding. Maybe lunch would become more efficient as a result. Fewer people is more safe anyway," On-Tamara wailed as she was dragged by the collar to the in-school suspension room.

As Ashley sat at her lunch table and watched her best friend being carried off by the high school equivalent of the Gestapo, On-Tamara�s words echoed in her head.

She stood up on her lunch table and screamed, "Free On-Tamara. The oppression of students by the administration must end. There is no reason for students who only need two credits to graduate to endure a mind-numbingly boring day of teacher-aiding or AP Study Hall. Think of all the money you�d save just in lunches. Why can�t we go for a half-day?"

At the exact moment that Ashley chose to begin her protest, lightning struck the building, igniting a small fire in the ceiling, which spread to the electrical wiring and, in a freak accident, caused the fluorescent light about Ashley�s head to fall from the ceiling, crushing the girl.

The school nurse was, of course, at lunch when this happened. Ashley�s friend Mary, who was taking pre-med courses at the local career academy, tried her best to revive Ashley. The cafeteria already being overcrowded and there only being so many supervisors to go around, the administration was too busy busting students whose shirttails were not tucked into their pants properly to call for emergency assistance. Ashley died that day.

At Ashley�s memorial service, On-Tamara felt compelled to eulogize her young friend. "Ashley was a special person. She never would have actually died if it had not been for the recklessness of the administration. I know she would�ve wanted the school to change its policy, allowing students to leave after second period and ensuring that no more lives would be lost due to unnecessary scheduling."

The moral of this story? Students who are released from school early each day are far less likely to die in freak accidents.

***

There you have it. I hope the narrative makes sense, because I tried to make it as close to reality as possible without using actual names. I guess we'll never know if I succeeded.

In other news, today is March 3, 2003: 03/03/03. That only happens, like, once every millenium. Right? I'm not good with numbers.