We meet in the lecture hall in the basement of the Natural Sciences Building for the election of the new dean of College of Natural Sciences. There is only one candidate, but the vote is at lunch, and we get a lunch-box, so attendance is high.
My nemesis, Evil Mark, from the Statistics department is there. I flip him the bird.
He pretends he doesn't see it. It's a subtle game of his. More than just pretending he doesn't see me, he wants me to know he is pretending. But I want him to know he is an asshole, so I just flip him the bird. And I wiggle it around a little, because I know he is scared of snakes. And then I stick it in his ear, because I don't like pretense.
We are urged to sit as the vice dean welcomes us to the vote. He then starts a Power Point presentation explaining the voting process. Showing a ballot on the screen with two rows of three boxes, he explains how we are to put a circle in one box of each row to show our confidence of the candidate in some aspect or other. The candidate must get a majority vote of high or medium confidence in each aspect to take the position.
The vice dean explains how we can put the circles, or checks if we prefer, one in each row. "Not two in one row, mind you." He shows a slide of spoiled ballot, one circle in each column.
It seems an overly pedantic explanation for a bunch of professors. I can feel the other Professors looking at me, me and Pavel Avramov from the Chemistry department, thinking we are the cause of this over-explanation.
"Any questions?" the vice dean asks. People nearby look at me. I shrug at them. They shrug back. Evil Mark looks at me and smirks. Alright then.
"Yeah." I say, standing up. "What if we put a circle on the top row, and a check on the bottom. That's okay, right?"
"Good question, thank-you." he begins. Then quickly finishes: "That's okay."
"I object!" yells Evil Mark, "It shows a disturbed mind. Such ballots should be thrown out."
"Well now..." consoles the vice dean.
"I object!" I yell. "Evil comments should be thrown out."
"He is making a farce of this," continues Evil Mark.
"What if I put my circle on someone else's ballot?" I take the discussion back to where the vice dean is comfortable with it.
"Good question, again, thank-you!" this was after a slight pause though. "Please only mark your own ballot."
"Should we put our name on it?" I ask.
"No," the vice deans replies. "The vote is anonymous."
"He doesn't know that word." says Evil Mark. "He only has TOPIK 2. If he knew words like that he wouldn't screw the ballot up every election and and force us to sit through these interminable explanations."
The vice-dean takes affront, and the camera cuts to the dean raising an eyebrow in admonition.
"Check-mate!" I yell, in English, because even if they have it, I don't know the word for 'Check-mate' in Korean.
"Really?" Evil Mark asks with a smile, and looking deep into his eyes, I see that we are not in the basement of the Natural Sciences building at all; I am just in my cold kitchen, late at night, getting sore shoulders from hunching over my laptop writing this stupid story.
