2. Kalen
2
KALEN
Nobody at the college loved sheltering in place when a storm came through. I mean, you were stuck inside, away from the windows, unable to leave until it was over. What was there to like about it? At least if I was with one of my classes, I could continue the lesson or even get ahead. But that was not today.
Of course, with my luck, it was the last day before break when shelter-in-place decided to rear its ugly head. Not only that, I was in a department meeting—a department meeting that I had been dreading and with good reason. The new dean was there with plans to make our jobs exponentially more difficult.
In their infinite wisdom, they created a master plan that included getting rid of the lower-level math class because it was one where “students at our school should already be well-versed in these topics.”
In theory, they were right. If you had the credits to qualify for admittance and test scores to back it up, you should know the information. Except, for a plethora of reasons, they weren’t “well-versed” in them, which was why we had them.
Sure, the courses didn’t count toward most of the majors, but for kids who hadn’t taken math for a couple of years or non-trads who came back to school after decades in the workforce, they were essential components of their math instruction. The curriculum focused on the building blocks they needed for success in every other mathematics course we offered. And now that the all-clear was in place, the dean knew full well. I’d just finished spending over two hours explaining it to them, over and over again, as the lights flickered outside and the winds raged on.
Now we were finally free, and my head was pounding, my stomach growling, and all my lion wanted to do was run. Run and run and run. Fine, he also wanted to hunt himself down a little snack, but mostly he needed out of this skin.
Unlike most lions I grew up with, who loved to lie in the sun and sleep outdoors, just chilling, mine thought he was a freakin’ track star. He would run anywhere and everywhere—but not today. Just the drive home showed me there were enough trees and powerlines down in this city that it would be better not to go tearing through the woods until all the limbs that were going to fall, fell. And really, for all we knew, another round of the storm was gonna whip around.
I drove to my place on the outskirts of town and went straight inside, needing to get out of my work clothes and into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt. Operation “Be a Slug” was about to begin.
This semester had already been far more stressful than most, with the new dean trying to make the college more in line with some of the larger universities he’d really wanted to be working at. He was such a pain in the ass. My colleagues and I spent ridiculous amounts of time trying to prove to him that we didn’t need to make massive changes all at once.
I wasn’t opposed to change as a rule. Heck, I’d been known to push a little too hard for it on multiple occasions over the years. But this was too much—too much of the wrong things. I’m sure, deep down, the dean had some really great ideas. Problem was, he hadn’t shown us any yet. He was hyperfixated on consolidating classes and increasing class sizes, and those things just didn’t work. Not for the kind of school environment we had.
Maybe in the big top-five schools he aspired us to be? Maybe? But I doubted it even worked there. College students were not robots. They needed a personalized experience that ginormous classes would never give them.
In any case, I was frustrated, and this time away was going to do me well.
I had a steak waiting for me to cook up and enjoy. Only, when I went to the fridge, I was met with my door hanging open, and everything inside was warm.
“What did I do?” I banged my head on the fridge door. I’d lived on my own for a long time and not once had I ever left the door open.
I pushed it closed, and it popped back open. Further investigation showed there was a box in the way.
“Okay. New plan.” Or at least there would be when I finally figured one out. For now I needed to get rid of the unsafe food.
I grabbed a garbage sack, throwing away anything that needed to be tossed for safety reasons. My pitcher of water was fine. The ketchup was fine. But all the dairy? Pretty much shot. Leftovers? Suspect. Thinking back, the last time I’d been in the fridge was last night, and 24-plus hours was far too long to trust the contents.
At least the whole thing wasn’t broken, and the freezer food was fine. Once it was cleaned out, I made sure the door was shut properly, grabbed my keys, and took my trash to the bin outside before heading to the grocery store—which was surprisingly empty.
I didn’t have time to restock the fridge fully. I mean, I had the time, but I didn’t have the energy. So I grabbed a steak and some things to make sides, and planned to check out when I saw a magazine advertising a new movie I’d been wanting to see. It was only in theaters, but reminded me that I planned to be a slug all vacation, and coming back here in the morning was the antithesis of that goal.
Over an hour and far too many dollars later, I was pulling up to my place with a trunk full of groceries. My lion was not impressed, but he was going to need to chill. Soon enough, he’d get his steak. Fingers crossed it would cut his craving for the run.
My plan for the night was to fill my belly and have a movie marathon. Or maybe a TV show marathon. I hadn’t decided. It didn’t matter which. When the TV was going on, my brain was off. And I was going to leave it that way until I had to go back to work.
I reached to grab my phone—only to notice I had left it inside. I hoped. If I left it at the store I was going to need to go out again. Ugh.
Somehow I carried the groceries in with only one trip. I started the steak in a frying pan, not wanting to deal with the grill after what I was sure was going to be a disaster out back, and while it was doing its thing, I put the groceries away. It already smelled absolutely delicious. I probably should’ve gotten two.
Groceries away and steak flipped, I went to find my phone, which I found sitting on my bed. It was low on charge, but at least it wasn’t still at the store. So there was that. As I went to put it on the charger, I noticed a new voicemail notification.
“That’s weird. No one leaves messages anymore.” At least no one I communicated with. My coworkers were big into emails, and my friends and family were texting-only peeps.
It wasn’t a number I recognized. I assumed it was some sort of tele-marketer or phishing scam, but it was local. Just in case, I listened to it. The first time, I couldn’t believe my ears. Some guy needed help. A tree had fallen on his house, and it was raining inside.
That wasn’t unusual. I was sure many people in town had a similar situation happening. It was my lion’s reaction that surprised me. He was front and center, all of his attention on the man on the phone.
I listened to it again, and my heart hurt. He was overwhelmed, to say the least. And what was worse? He called me instead of whatever contractor he thought he had the number for.
And here I was, being salty about a department meeting that went long, while this poor guy had his entire house severely damaged by the same storm that had kept me at work.
I looked at the time and decided it was too late to call tonight. Normally I didn’t even bother with wrong numbers, assuming they would figure it out soon enough. With this guy? I felt the need to at least call him.
“In the morning, I’ll call you back.” But even as I said it, I felt yucky about it. But the reality was, I was a math professor, not a contractor. What good could I do?
My lion disagreed with me on every level and pushed on me hard. Pushing so hard that it got real close to the point where I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep him back if I kept ignoring it.
What is your problem?
Help.
No. I don’t know how to help him.
Just calling him will help him. He pushed again, and this time, my hands started to morph into my paws.
“Fuck.”
Fine. I’ll go and help him. But you better behave, because I can’t have you pushing like this.
I’d never in my life worried that I wouldn’t be able to control my beast—until right now.
Now, I wasn’t so sure.