Nick Pirog - Behind the Seens

BEHIND THE SEENS

By

Nick Pirog

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Nick Pirog

2015 Nick Pirog

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Contents

Chapter 1

Fake Graduation

August 2003

What are you doing up so early, mydad asks, his forehead wrinkling under his recedinghairline.

Over the course of my twenty-twoyears, my father had seldom seen me up before noon, let alone 7a.m.

I am three strides from my car and Istop. Im going to the library to write.

Wow, you must be reallydedicated, he says.

I dont know how to swallow thisremark. My dad just spent forty thousand dollars on my collegetuition and he would have been happier if I were wearing a suit andtie and headed to a job or at the very least, aninterview.

I nod, then look down at the cellphone my parents bought me as a graduation present, and see it isfive after seven. I need to get on the road. I dont want to getstuck in traffic.

My dad asks, Whats the name of thebook again?

Unforescene . The scene spelledlike crime scene. Im sure I would have smiled at this point,thinking how clever I was. Thinking people would see the title,nod, and say, Now theres a book title. That title is so good Imgonna buy two copies.

Im equally sure my dad was not ofthis ilk. He probably nodded and asked, Hows the carrunning?

This was my dads favorite question. Iheard it nearly every Sunday during our weekly chat in college andI still hear it every once in a while twelve yearslater.

Pretty good.

He nods and makes a weird sound guysaround fifty make where you dont know if its an inhale or anexhale. Or a sigh. Or a snort. Or a cough. Or themdying.

I gotta get a move on, Isay. Gotta get there before all the good seats aretaken.

I jump in my maroon VW Passat andslowly drive out of the cul-da-sac. (My brother and I put theneighbors through enough during high school; now that we had bothmoved back home, I wanted to prove I was now an upstanding citizen.Not the scourge of Kenton Court.) When I eclipse the last house, Itake a left and gun it down a side street.

Im not going to thelibrary.

Im driving an hour and forty-fiveminutes back up to Fort Collins.

Back up to Colorado StateUniversity.

I am sitting on a bigsecret.

I never actually graduated fromcollege.

>>>

Graduation is five days off and I justfound out I failed a class. And not any class. My businesscapstone. Im not sure what the name of it was, BG 500 or somethinglike that, but I know that no matter what your concentration was marketing, finance, or mine, business administration the classwas a mandatory requirement.

It was widely considered afluff class. If you simply attended, participated in Mikes Bikes , as well asa group project at the end, then you would likely receive an A.Whats Mikes Bikes you ask? (Im laughing while Im writing this, just thinkingabout Mikes Bikes .) Mikes Bikes was a computer simulation game where groups of students wouldstart a bike company and through different pricing, supply chain,marketing, and distribution variables, compete against one anotherfor top sales. It encompassed everything you had supposedly learnedthroughout your time in the business school.

Barf.

I had the class from 5pm to 8pm onThursdays. I attended class three times. (Out of 12.)

I went to my professors office (Icant remember his name, but I do remember him looking vaguelysimilar to Doctor Phil) a week earlier to try to convince him thereason I didnt go to class was because I had a social anxietydisorder (which to some degree I did have, but it was one part,anxiety disorder; one part, giant college hangover; and one part, Iwould rather go read a book and eat at the Carls Junior in thestudent center than go to class), and though it appeared I had himon the fence of a D-, he said he had to fail me.

This wasnt the first class I failed.There was a policy at Colorado State called repeat/delete,whereby if you failed a class, then you could take it again(repeat) and whatever grade you got would take the place of(delete) the F. I repeat-deleted two Fs previously, but this timeit was different. I was supposed to graduate in fivedays.

Now, heres the thing, graduationoccurs before the teachers have to submit their grades, so even ifyou do fail a class, they will still call your name during theceremony. They just wont mail you your diploma.

As you can guess, I was faced with anethical dilemma.

1) Tell my parents I failed a classand I would try to take it during the summer; and that they shouldprobably cancel the graduation party they had planned for me thefollowing Sunday.

Or

2) Just go with it.

I chose the latter.

Five days later, they called my nameand my parents watched as I walked up to the podium and took a fakediploma they mail you the diploma a couple weeks later, that is,if you didnt fail the easiest class offered at the university and shook the hand of one of my teachers who had failed me theprevious semester (I repeat/deleted her class and swapped the F outfor a D-.)

The next weekend, myparents threw a big graduation party for me at their house well,I was living there now, so I suppose it was our house and we packed the placewith friends and family.

Id gotten a little loose-lipped withmy fake graduation story and I still remember when my friendBrents dad Jim Fullerton, who was my baseball coach for manyyears and who I knew quite well walked up to me. He swiveled hishead from side to side, like we were about to engage in a drugdeal, or something else equally sinister, and whispered, I heardyou didnt really graduate.

I dont remember what I did or said,but I think I probably smiled.

Do your parentsknow?

A shake of the head. Anothergrin.

What are you going todo?

I had a plan in the works. The classwas being offered in August and I was going to commute the twohours from my parents house under the guise that I was going tothe library to write.

I tell him this.

Who's going to pay forit?

I was.

Well, not me per se . My relatives andmy parents friends and Jim Fullerton were gonna pay forit.

Youre going to use allthe money you make from your graduation party to pay for the classthat you need to graduate?

Yes.

That was the plan.

>>>

Id been commuting to FortCollins each morning for the past two weeks. Both my mom and dadthought I was at the library writing when I was actually in FortCollins playing MikesBikes . (And currently in lastplace.)

Somehow, the gossip wheel hadntextended to my parents at my graduation party and they were nonethe wiser to my scheme.

However, not everything went accordingto plan.

I racked up $600 dollars from thegraduation party, enough to cover the class, but in order for myparents not to find out, I had to pay an outstanding balance on myaccount, which was a combination of my last trip to the universityclinic, plus a $400 emergency loan I took out.

The money I made from my graduationparty paid off the loan and the clinic bill; then my brother wrotea check for my class.

My brother is two years older than meand he was living at home as well. Hed graduated from ColoradoState two years earlier and was doing some entry-level stuff at abank. Living at home, he was starting to save and offered to loanme the money.

Tony, Tony, Tony (thats my brothersname), thank you for your generosity, but next time you offer tohelp me out, please make sure your fucking check doesntbounce.