The QR Code
“Hey, hey! Are you alright?”
Logan thought this was a bit on the nose for a therapist to ask, but it was necessary to snap him back to reality. Since his incident yesterday, he could not stop falling into this same trance, like he was plunging through an infinite digital abyss.
“Okay, I’m going to need you to walk me through this again. Be as thorough as you possibly can, but if you start to feel unwell again don’t hesitate to tell me. Remember, I’m here not just to care for you, but your entire self. I can’t let your eyes start to glaze over or your legs shake again or they’d only pay me 90%.”
Logan considered his therapist’s blatant misunderstanding of the school’s foundational value, took a deep breath, and began to divulge the terrible occurrence of yesterday…
Today was the first day of Logan’s freshman year at Georgetown—the first day of the rest of his life. He hurriedly packed his bags and rushed to the Harbin elevator with nervous excitement (as no one has done before). Fifteen minutes later, Logan scampered down the Harbin stairs, which Logan told himself was always his plan A. An upperclassman scowled at his grin—which stretched from the Waterfront to Dumbarton Oaks—but he could not be bothered in the slightest since he was lucky enough to be taking Principles of Microeconomics (and with the funny Mormon professor, too)!
Blowing the hinges off the ICC doors like he was at a Target on Black Friday, Logan gallivanted to his seat at the front of the auditorium. Maybe he should try to make some friends? Logan whipped his ever-beaming countenance to his left, only to be met with a side-desk being pulled up from the seat beside him straight into his face. Awkward apologies ensued but Logan felt that this was a sign to reign things in, and he aborted his short-lived pursuit for the fruits of companionship.
The professor sauntered across the stage, smugly going through his syllabus, yet Logan could not pay attention to the professor’s remarks as he was too busy feverishly and illegibly scribbling down everything the professor said onto his iPad. At the conclusion of this endeavor, a QR code flashed onto the screen for a first day check-in survey. This was the last thing standing in between Logan and the pursuit of higher knowledge. Logan whipped out his iPhone Duo and scanned the monochrome pixels.
Huh? He needed to log in? He just did that this morning—why was it already coming up again? Logan shrugged and entered in his netID, llc67. And then that accursed password … who could have come up with those words and strung them together in that order? He scrolled back through a couple thousand photos in his camera roll to find the screenshot he took of it. “Cattywampus.” He guessed that’s normal enough. “Milliliter.” With all those i’s and l’s, that was a bit difficult to spell. “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.” Now that’s just cruel. “SKRRRRT.” How was that even an option? And was that last word … his mother’s maiden name? Oh well—it worked.
Except, dear reader, it didn’t. DuoMobile reared its ugly head, insisting on a code, 318008, to be put into the app. Logan left the browser to enter the DuoMobile app, located on the most inconspicuous page on his idiotically-shaped phone. Phew! It must be ready now. Uhhh … no! The page closed itself. He scanned the QR code again, and repeated this entire frustrating process (his password was, unsurprisingly, not any easier to spell this time). However, even after accepting his Duo log-in, he was still far from finished.
An alert reading “NEW SECURITY MEASURE!” popped up on the screen. Logan then had to click all of the images with Jack the Bulldog on the screen to verify that he’s not a robot. He selected the image of Jack with the basketball team and another with Jack on Copley Lawn, but was met with an “Incorrect Response” message—apparently he left off the image with a map of Georgetown that apparently contained Jack at microscopic scale. He beat the system next time, choosing the image of the crowd of people, which surely obscured Jack, while leaving out the Build-A-Jacks. But this somehow was not the end either.
“Look up!” his phone told him. Puzzled, he acquiesced, only to be met with a message on the projector screen reading: “Logan, write a 1,000 word essay about the person to your left.”
“The person who hit me with their desk arm!?” he exclaimed in anguish.
“Yes,” the board replied dismissively. “Now go.”
What could he even say about this person? That they had a clear lack of understanding of personal space? He BS-ed his way through a thousand bitter words only to be met with his next challenge: enter your credit card information. “This is getting ridiculous now,” thought Logan. But he had to learn about microeconomics, so he complied, even checking the lengthy terms and conditions box accepting responsibility for any risk of extreme bodily harm or death from this form.
Finally, he reached the last screen. “Your final test,” and this truly was his hardest challenge yet, “What’s your favorite song of the year so far?” Are you kidding? He was an Econ major, not a minstrel. No serious pre-professional future supervillain would have free time to spend listening to new music. Did Ed Sheeran have a new album? Or Taylor Swift? Aha! Logan typed in “Boston” by Stella Lefty, and hit submit. He did it! Finally, he would be able to understand the mysteries of microecono-
The auditorium was empty. Class was over. The lights were off. It was dark outside.
Elliot Anderson is a junior in the College majoring in Biology and minoring in … hold on GU Experience hasn’t loaded yet.
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