Last-minute paper

Last Friday at 11:54 a.m., my group and I were printing out our research paper (due at noon on the other side of campus) with one-minute left of our timed computer session. Neither Tom nor I had money on our ID cards to print out the paper, so we were really hoping that Dave would! He couldn't remember for sure.

Our group had met at 11:00 a.m. at a random place on campus (the basement of the Wilkinson Center) to bring everything neatly together before printing it out. We sat on the ground because during finals time on campus there are very few available and comfortable places to meet.

We had all contributed separately to a google doc (thank goodness for google docs in group work!!), but we came together to clean it up and format it. We worked like true perfectionists until 11:40, when we decided it was time to print it out. 

"Ya know, in my whole college career [he's a senior], I have never waited until this close to class to print out a paper," Dave said.

Tom and I looked at each other.

"Really?" we asked. "I thought we still had plenty of time?" Tom looked back at me again.

"Yeah, me too," I said. "We still have 20 minutes."

"Oh, ok," Dave said.

Maybe that's why he moved so slowly while Tom and I jumped off the ground and headed toward the computer lab. They both wanted to sit down at a computer, but I said we didn't have time for it, so why don't we just work at this other computer over here where you can just print things out quickly? They reluctantly joined me as I signed into the computer.

"But we only get 10 minutes on this one before it kicks us off!"

I hadn't thought of that. "That's perfect! We only have 15 minutes anyway, so we'll be fine."

"Can you even print from a google doc?" Dave asked?

"Uh, yeah. You have to be able to!" I said as we opened the document. "That would be dumb if you couldn't!"

Dave went to print the google doc and instead of printing it to the printer, it made it a pdf first . . . which would have been great if it hadn't completely changed our perfect formatting! Now our headings and table of contents were all off.

"Oh, shoot! What do we do?"

The computer flashed a warning letting us know we only had five minutes left.

"Um . . . copy and paste it to a Word doc," I said. "I'll start doing the same thing on this computer over here just in case we lose it."

Dave hesitated.

"Control-A," Tom said.

"What?" Dave asked?

"Just hit control-A!" Tom repeated.

Dave tried to highlight the whole document with the mouse but he wasn't getting the whole thing.

"Control-A! Control-A!" I said. "It will just highlight the whole thing!"

"Oh!" Dave said, and finally hit control-A. He then pasted it into a Word document.

The formatting was terrible. Word had changed our beautifully formatted, double-spaced document into ugly, single-spaced mush.

"It's ok," I said. "Let's just double-space it and then we'll check it to fix the other formatting!"

Dave double-spaced the document and starting scrolling from the top. Our table of contents was way off again. He spends a few minutes adjusting text size throughout the paper.

Dave scrolled back to the top. "Ok, do we want our table of contents in the middle or at the top?"

"Uh, at the top!"

"What about our abstract?" Dave asked.

"I think we should put it at the top," I replied.

"I think the middle, toward the top."

"Ok, let's just put it toward the top," I consented. "Is that where it's supposed to be?"

"Yeah, just in the top 3/4 of the page."

"Ok, that's fine."

Dave scrolled down to check the rest of the document one more time. "Ok, I think we're ready to print."

He scrolled back up and Tom noticed the positioning of the abstract.

"Shouldn't the abstract be at the top?" he asked.

"That's what I said! Dave just said toward the top is fine. Dave, let's just put it at the top."

Dave put the abstract at the top of the paper, and then made sure the introduction started on the page it was supposed to. He then clicked file, then print.

The computer flashed another warning sign: "You have one minute left!"

"Ahh, ok, hurry and print it, Dave!" I said. "This is good, this is good," I repeated, laughing and jumping up and down; I realized we must look ridiculous. "See, this is great? Now we have to be fast!"

After Dave clicked print and entered in his ID number, he took one last scroll through the document, and noticed . . . a floating header. "We have to fix that," he said. He fixed it and went to file, print again.

Our last warning signed flashed brightly: "You have 30 seconds remaining!"

"Ahh, hurry!" I said, loudly.

The computer kicked us off right after Dave entered his ID information again.

"Ok, let's hope I have money on my card," Dave said.

I held my breath.

"Yes! $1.50!" Dave exclaimed.

"Whew! Is that enough?" I asked.

"Yep!"

Dave printed out the paper and looked through it one last time. It was at least 11:57.

"The table of contents says the conclusion starts on page 15, but now it's page 14. Is that ok? Do we need to fix that?"

"No, we don't have time! We have to get to class to turn it in!" I said urgently, more used to being the perfectionist than reassuring another.

Tom agreed. So we hurried off to class, laughing and freaking out at the same time.

"That was exciting!" Dave exclaimed.