Step Off!

6Ms. Jackson if You're Nasty

March 2, 1990, three months shy of my UNC graduation date, I found myself in the RTVMP (radio, television, and motion picture) building sitting in a professor's office complaining about a grade for a media project I had handed in. His name not only escapes me now but always did when I was taking his course. Thanks to his uncanny appearance, I only ever referred to him as “Richard Dreyfuss” and, on occasion, “Beard Dandruff.” Therefore, for the sake of this memory, he will remain “Richard Dreyfuss.” Anyway, I didn't necessarily think my project was better than the grade I was given, but it was rumored that Richard Dreyfuss could be persuaded into a grade change if a student made an impassioned plea.

So, there I was in his office dripping melodrama. This moment was proof that scheduling my classes for two years around watching the acting on Days of Our Lives was a good idea. I finished my appeal to him with a distorted facial expression caught somewhere between a lip quiver and “the white man's overbite.” Yes, it was an awkward unrehearsed look, but I was in too deep not to commit to it. With that, Richard Dreyfuss looked down and silently opened his grade book, slowly tapped his Bic on the desk, then after a long beat and deep breath he looked up and said…nothing. In perfect Richard Dreyfuss dramatic fashion, right as he was about to speak, his phone rang. As he reached for the phone with one hand, he held up the index finger of the other, and damn ...