Adamian Academic Center

The year was 1986. I was drinking a fresh Dunkacino™ from Dunkin Brands, and wandering through the sprawling halls of Adamian Academic Center, watching the brass name-plaques of countless adjucts float by me in my caffeine and radiator-heat induced stupor. I mosied past the Arthur Anderson room, followed by the Exxon Valdez lecture hall. I was nonplussed. Suddenly, a professor so old that he could have done accruals on Stonehenge rushed towards me at a frightening speed. World-weary, wizened eyes peered at me from the translucent lenses of glasses as thick as they were wide. As he got closer, I opened my mouth to greet the old man, but he quickly held up a crooked finger to his lips and forcefully whispered in surprisingly upbeat tones, "Careful, Horatio. Babson's trying to steal the secrets to being good at accounting from us again. Don't run your mouth to any honeys, y'hear?" My name was not Horatio, but I understood completely. Babson had infiltrated Bentley, and was trying to clandestinely acquire our proprietary methods of determining cost drivers. As I quieted myself with furtive sips of Dunkacino™, I peered behind the curiously energetic old professor, to see into the room he had emerged from. A man and a woman were sitting in Aeron Office Chairs™, their hands fastened to the arms of the chairs with unusually large binder clips. The old professor turned to me. "Alright Horatio, my eyesight isn't as good as it used to be, I'm gonna need your help to figure out which of these posers is from Babson." What I had to do here was clear. The eyes are the windows to the soul, and the soul of every Bentley student is cost based accounting. But as I peered into the eyes of the potential infiltrators, I found that the steam from my iced Dunkacino™ had fogged up my glasses, and I couldn't determine as all people can by sight who is good at finance and accounting and who is from Babson. Thinking quickly, I asked them a question only real Bentley students would know: "Quick, what do they call credits and debits in Brazil?" "Creditos and Debitos!" the male suspect replied enthusiastically. "It's the Edna!" I relayed to the old professor. "Creditos and Debitos, a classic." he said wistfully, wiping a tear from his eye. The male suspect was let go, he was just a hockey team member who wandered too far from THE BENTLEY ARENA™. The female suspect was immediately arrested by the accounting police, and sentenced by the accounting courts to a four year imprisonment in accounting jail, which is just the undergraduate program at Babson. As the super secret cost driver determination strategies were secured and delivered to the least frequented and most desolate area of campus for safekeeping, the Seasons dessert table, the old professor looked back at me and said, "Good work kid. Gloria Larson's gonna put a gold star on your diploma for this one." My 21st birthday is approaching this year, and I'm about to become of legal age to apply to consume Dunkacinos™ on campus. As I sit here, completing my application forms why sipping pensively on a Dunkacino™, I can't help but remember that fateful day over 30 years ago when Gloria Larson put that golden sticker on my diploma. I'll be finishing my Bachelors degree in two years' time, and have changed my name to Horatio to reflect the moment of inspiration years ago that allowed me to get this far. And no matter where life may lead me, from Adamian Academic Center, to Adamian Academic Center, through the thick and thin, I'll always know in my heart that at least I didn't go to Babson.