Study Prof

A College Fable

Once upon a time there was a wise and wealthy king whose only son was the very model of manly magnificence. Handsome, witty, athletic, and urbane, at the mere mention of the prince’s name young maidens spontaneously burst into flames and young men took to toting around buckets of water with which to douse their sizzling sisters. Unfortunately, the prince was prone to partying and could barely be bothered with running the affairs of his father’s kingdom.

The good king despaired of ever making a worthy successor of his son. But one day, while sitting on the throne and pondering the problem of the profligate prince, he hit upon a plan of such surpassing brilliance that he clean forgot to flush.

The next day he called the young man to his garden. “Son, I have decided to reward one of my most beloved subjects with a palace of his own. And not just any palace. This palace shall be a paradise on earth, indeed fit for a king!”

The young prince scratched his perfectly cleft chin, winked at an already flaming damsel who was supposed to be mulching the petunias, and said, “A worthy gift no doubt, father, but what has this to do with me?”

Mercifully pushing the fiery maiden into a nearby fountain the king replied, “It has everything to do with you [dramatic pause here] for you shall build it!”

The prince, who could smell work like it was last week’s tuna fish, saw an end to his care-free existence and tenaciously tendered excuse after excuse to excuse him from the duty being foisted upon him, but the old king held firm. “Indeed, my son, you will build the palace, but don’t fret. You may use up to one-fifth of my wealth and my workers, and you may call upon all my advisors, architects, and engineers to make it a marvel. One final word…”

“Yes, father?”

“You shall have four years from this day to finish this task, and upon the completion of this splendid palace, [another big dramatic pause here--the king was a bit of a drama queen] you shall be crowned king!” The prince immediately perked up at that thought and hastened away to his duty.

He spent days poring over architectural diagrams and riding round the kingdom to inspect possible sites. After finding the perfect site the workers broke ground and began laying the foundations for the palace in the beginning of the first year. But the prince soon began to tire of the tedium. He came less and less to the worksite and the workmen, unsupervised and lazy, did very shoddy work indeed. Every few weeks the prince’s guilty conscience would push him into a visit. He would chide the workmen and have them fix a few of the more egregious architectural disasters, but then he would fail to show up again the next week and the cycle would begin anew.

As the end of the fourth and final year approached, the prince realized that the palace was a disaster, but by this time there was nothing to be done but try to cover up the mess. Besides, it’s not like the “beloved subject” whom the palace was for would complain. The prince would soon be king and beyond the man’s malice. He set the workmen to building fast and furious, with even less regard for quality than before. Over it all, they put tapestries and paint to disguise the weak walls and tottering staircases. With a last desperate rush, the laborers finished the palace minutes before midnight on the 365th day of the final year.

The young prince, having stayed up late with last minute fixes, arrived at his coronation ceremony bleary-eyed and unkempt. He winked at a pretty maid in the crowd, but she barely smoldered. With great pomp and circumstance the old king crowned the prince making him king of all the lands, and then he asked, “Have you completed the palace as I asked?”

“I have, father.”

“As I told you four years ago, the palace was to be a gift to my most beloved subject, and who could be more beloved than my own son! The palace is your coronation present and it shall be your royal residence.”

I wish I could tell you the prince lived happily ever after, but truth be told, the palace leaked most abominably even when it wasn’t raining, the paper thin walls offered no privacy, and the toilets had a tendency to back up at the most inconvenient times. Finally, a heavy breeze in the second year of the new king’s reign brought the whole edifice down in a heap of particle board and duct tape.

The young king spent another fifth of his wealth and another four years to rebuild the palace. But he had learned his lesson. This time he would do it right!

Your education is, of course, your own palace. You will have to live in it. Are you building it well?

Be Sociable, Share!

•