Sitcom | Situation based comedy

Dear World,

You will never believe the craziness that happened to me recently! I had an exam to sit on Monday and the Sunday before, I felt unprepared. My mother called it pre-exam jitters, to me, unprepared is just unprepared, even if I had been studying before. The odd thing is that I was studying from weeks before and concepts, explanations and applications that I should have only been re-reading seemed like a foreign language to me.

The Sunday before an exam and I was absolutely clueless. Woe be unto me.

I decided to go to school and use the main library to be inspired to re-learn or better yet trigger the information in my memory that I knew was hiding somewhere. Maybe all the books would help me in my swatting and studying bit. I went to my favourite spot in the library which is at the third floor in a corner to the right wing. Only 4 other persons were on the top floor. World, I must say that I actually started to remember what I knew I already studied. I even started to retain new information, man was I on a roll. I made the right choice to go study at the library on Sunday as hardly anyone uses the library on that day which means less distractions for me. As night fell on the Sunday, I felt a lot more comfortable with my chances of being able to do well in the Monday morning exam.

My plan was to stay till about midnight and then leave. Please note that I know of the library being open very late in the nights. I’m talking about after 10 at night that I know of it to be opened. So in my mind, I was set with my study spot for a while.

At about 7:30 a gentleman who appeared to be a student stayed a ways from me and did a hand gesture, I had no idea what he meant so I gave him the clueless look and he did the same hand gesture again, I was still clueless and ignored him. He did not come to me to say anything so I figured that his gestures were not important enough for me to stop studying.

At about 9pm, World, I felt good enough to stop studying and go home*.  I looked around and saw that the other persons were gone and the place seemed still. I payed that little attention though because the floor I was on was well lit. Anyways, I did a final walk through of the information I just retained and I walked while I “walked through”. As I walked I saw that there was no one on the second floor and that the rest of the place was dark. At that point, I went to the first floor to investigate and find out what was going on. World, there was no one else in the library! I went back to my spot in denial and sat down to study again because in my mind, I was probably tired and started to hallucinate. 

After 15 minutes passed, I looked at the time and said “but it’s early, so where is everyone?”. All the doors were closed and almost every light was off. I checked the library website to view the opening hours on a Sunday. When the page loaded, it said that 8pm is the closing time on a Sunday. At that point I started a silent panic, I was locked in the freaking main library the night before my exam. I felt the knowledge I just gained oozing out my brain while my pressure rose. I sent out an SOS but according to my friends, retrospectively, I seemed too calm so they didn’t think my SOS  was serious. When the hell is an SOS not serious? lol.

I had no idea what to do. As my grams would say, “mi form fool”.  I consulted with my partner in crime, Jhean and she said that I should see if I can get someone to get me out. (that obviously would have been the smart thing to do – big big Masters student and mi freak out cause I got locked in. BUT the issue was compounded with the fact that I was tired and not fully prepared for my upcoming exam.)

I went down stairs to the door that joins the main library to the over night reading room which is open almost 24/7 to get the attention of someone. I acted crazy ( on purpose ) saying “let me free! let me free!” and of course I was the laughing stock of those wenches and scallywags but at that point I cared zero. Mi did jus wah fi get out.

About a 1 hour or thereabout later, ( as I, sat in the dark explaining myself to everyone who saw that I was trapped in the library), the security and the same man who gave me the hand gestures let me out. I call him the “gestures hombre” now. Apparently he was the person responsible for closing up and his gestures meant that I should have wrapped up my work and leave the building because it was closing time. Once I saw him I apologized because I knew it must have been a burden.

So this gestures hombre had the audacity fi ask why mi neva leave when I saw him first. I was so pissed. “Nigga did you really try to let me know the deal?” says the voice in my head. He tried to attack me but I pounced first. Brite! Then he says, “yuh neva hear me when I said closing time?”. I gave him the “no fool, I didn’t hear you, do you really think I would allow myself to be locked up purposely?”  look. Then I said the words equivalent to the look minus the fool part.

The poor security guard, bless his soul had to calm us both down.

I don’t care what anyone else says, if this man was really doing his job to ensure that I understood and indicated that I was going to leave the library, he would have come to me and said it rather than standing some feet away from me to give hand gestures and whisper instructions. ( yes I know I’m blind and deaf, World. No need to remind me) but I still think he was unprofessional.

Will I be using the library again? Not any time soon.

Will I be using that third floor again? Not any time soon.

Things could have been worse still. SO I give thanks. But jaaah knoo star. That was an experience!

As all of this unfolded, I could only sit and imagine my life as a sitcom. Every other minute the audience would be laughing at my pain. *Yes that was a Kevin Hart plug in*. All the events leading up to my release are pretty funny when i think about it.

At one point I was thinking of where I could sleep. lol.

What a ting.

World, You must have had so much fun watching me go through that ordeal too. While I went through it, IT WAS NOT FUNNY! That’s that love thing dont it? Yeah right. Kindly chuck off. Thanks.

Signed with love,

Candice K.