Catherine Palmer - Good News/Bad News

 

I'm a college professor, and if you are or were one of those students who do things assignments at the last minute, I'm your worst nightmare. I have no sympathy for the student who gets in trouble doing an assignment at last minute. Printers break, networks go down. But if you're doing things in a timely manner, this doesn't matter because you have time to fix that. But if you're doing it at the last minute, you're completely derailed. So, if I didn't care when things were due, I wouldn't give them a due date. No need to tell me your computer crashed. I know computers crash.

 

Honestly, in all of my schooling, I only ever pushed one assignment to the last minute. Unfortunately, it was this critical assignment in my PhD program where I really needed to complete a research paper, impress a professor, so he'd invite me to do research in his lab. So, I sat down on the weekend to look at what I needed to do. It was due on Monday, and I realized I had a week worth of work in front of me. And I didn't have a week. But I figured if I ignored personal hygiene and eating, [audience chuckle] I might just pull this off. So, I started to work like a woman possessed. It's kind of exciting to have that kind of deadline. And I really think to this day, I did some of my best writing in those hours. But we'll never know, because 13 hours into this, my computer crashed. [audience chuckles]

 

So it's the mid-1980s. I had one of the new Macintosh computers. And when something goes wrong with those computers, you actually get a picture of a bomb right in the middle of the screen. [audience chuckles] And I remember staring at the bomb, thinking, I would be in better shape if an actual bomb went off in my apartment. [audience laughter] A professor would have to accept that as an excuse, but that was not the case. So, the problem here was I had been working like such a lunatic that I hadn't printed anything, I hadn't backed anything up, I had nothing. So, I had this disk with all the information that couldn't be read by this computer. But I had bought the computer locally, and I thought, “I'm going to go down to the store. There were a lot of computer whiz kids at the store. Maybe they can retrieve this.”

 

So I got down there and I arrived unbathed, on the verge of tears and wearing clothes that were also unbathed. [audience chuckles] And I told my very sad story to the guy at the desk. And he said, "Well, we have this new intern named Mark. He's right around the corner. Go tell him. He might be able to help you.” So, I went over and I repeated my sad story. And Mark said-- he took my phone number and he said, "When the store closes, I'll have some time. I'll try to save this, but if I can't, I'll maybe be able to print it for you and you can use that." I thanked him profusely. From a little bit of a distance, I had realized how disgusting I was and I headed home.

 

A few hours later the phone rings and I brace myself, it was Mark. And he said, "I have good news and I have bad news." And I thought, well, they probably couldn't retrieve anything, but maybe they could print it. I said, "Well, what's the bad news?" And he said, "We can't retrieve anything. We can't print anything. It's gone." And I remember hearing myself say, "What the hell is the good news?" To which he replied, "I'd love to take you to dinner." [audience laughter] Honestly, that wasn't good news. [audience chuckles] Now, any young woman who has a mother or other young girlfriends knows that you don't ever accept a last-minute invitation on a Saturday night because you look pathetic and as if you had no plans, but actually I was pathetic. [audience chuckles] And I had a feeling I would never ever have any plans because I had destroyed my life not getting this assignment done.

 

The other thing young women know is if you're going to go out with a stranger, you meet them at a neutral place and you call at least one friend and say who you're going out with and where you're going. So, I proceeded to call no one and give Mark my address. [audience laughter] I had a whole new plan. I thought if this guy's a murderer, this could solve all my problems. [audience laughter] So I was thinking, if you're murdered, no one's going to pay attention that you didn't turn in your homework. They're going to be really upset. And I daydream in very vivid color and I could already see my parents getting all this sympathy. But then I saw the news kind of transitioning to what poor decisions I had made. [audience chuckles] 

 

But I really thought my parents would consider this a call to action, start a foundation, and educate other young women so this wouldn't happen to them. [audience laughter] So I had this all reconciled. I actually showered and put on new clothes and Mark arrived. Now, you've already figured out he didn't murder me. [audience chuckles] But for all young women in the audience, the fact that I'm still alive does not make any of these decisions less stupid. So, he didn't murder me and actually a few months later I married him. [cheers and applause] So the professor that I was trying to impress, oddly enough was more impressed that my computer crashed and I fell in love.

 

So although if you are one of my students in a class and you are doing something in the last minute and your computer crashes, you will most likely get an F, but you just might find the love of your life.