Evan Murdock
eamurdock [at] wisc.edu
Planning to attend

One would think that with a fine and expensive liberal arts education I would not make such an unfortunate and easily avoided error, but there it is. Ever since the day I signed up for the "Peas Core," my life has been topsy-turvy indeed.

I should, also, have sensed danger when, upon arrival for my training session, I was ushered onto "El Fondo de Mono," a decrepit and decaying freighter flying (almost certainly counterfeit) Panamanian colors.

But, alas, I was young, and lacked the sense I have now. The same foolhardy joie-de-vie that cost me my left eye to the Jakartan ambassador's cockatiel (but that's a story for another time) drove me up the gangplank, through the rusted steel hatches, and down a rickety ladder into a hold encrusted with the filth and broken dreams of so many more like me.

We set sail the next morning. I was not to see sunlight for six weeks, but by fashioning a compass from a discarded hypodermic and the hair of a mummified Shih Tzu I found in the corner and reckoning our speed by the sound of the water against the cold steel hull, I was able to place our landfall as being the diminutive pacific atoll of Enewetak. It was here, under the brutal pacific sun, that I learned what was to be my trade for the next seven years: Fashioning tacky shell art for sale to vacationing Canadians. To this day, the mere sight of a maple leaf crusted with the discarded nacreous carapaces of the mid-intertidal limpet Notoacmea Scutum fills my heart with dread. My masterpiece was a life-size sculpture of Toronto Maple Leafs right wing Charles William (Charlie) Conacher, which now resides in the boardroom of an unnamed Ontario law firm.

In 2003, having had my fill of the inhuman shellhole I found myself in, I felt the time had come to make my escape. Disguising my self as a shell-crusted Bengal tiger, I was smuggled aboard a Philippine military transport ship and delivered to the home of lampshade and tapestry magnate, Filmore Berteste, in Bora Bora.

I will spare you the details of my harrowing return to my home country. Suffice to say that — while I regret the loss of my eye, the two fingers of my right hand, and the substantial dowry paid in the vain hope of marrying a beautiful Mongolian princess — I would give them all again, and happily, to attend my 10-year college reunion.

Fortunately, such sacrifice is unnecessary. I will be present, and I trust that all my colleagues will know me despite the extensive (and, may I point out, involuntary) facial tattooing.