Room Reservation Process

Hello friends of Divine Comedy!  Occasionally we receive questions about what is involved in Divine Comedy and to what degree the productions are difficult to produce.  I’m happy to answer those questions with the following allegory about what is involved in reserving the venue for Divine Comedy Shows.

Allegory:

The stealth aircraft tore through the night’s sky at an outrageous speed and did so at an absolutely imprudent height.  Matt Meese’s confident hands deftly manipulated the dizzying array of controls and equipment.  “Thirty-five seconds to jump” he intoned through his sleek black headset, for the benefit of the two passengers in the rear of the aircraft.

Natalie Thomas and Gregory Schulz completed their final pre-jump checks.  They checked their parachutes, night-vision goggles, highly-specialized ballpoint pens, and in-ear radios.  “We’re go flight” said Gregory to the pilot after receiving the thumbs up from Natalie.  “Roger,” returned Matt, “opening jump door.”  Gregory and Natalie each clipped a small oxygen canister to the front of their black clothing.  The jump was being conducted from so high up that extra oxygen would be needed for about the first 10,000 feet of the fall.  The extreme height was necessary to avoid the anti-aircraft fire that came from the perimeter defenses surrounding the ASB.

The intrepid comedians hurled themselves headfirst from the aircraft.  A few seconds into their fall, Matt announced via radio that he had successfully dropped the payload of Mountain Dew just south of Helaman Halls.  The payload was designed to create a half protest rally, half desperate fight for soda, that should occupy security for long enough to allow Natalie and Gregory to book the room.

Pulling their chutes at the last possible moment, the away party landed silently on the roof of the ASB.  The sound of sirens and Airsoft™ fire could be heard from away toward Helaman Halls; Matt’s diversion had succeeded.  Quickly, Natalie unpacked shaped charges and assembled them in a one meter square on the roof of the building.  Meanwhile, Gregory assembled a rectangular box, six feet tall, and just shy of one meter square at the base.  The outside of the box was a highly polished, and nearly perfectly reflective, metal surface.  Gregory placed the box in the square of shaped charges, and stepped inside the box through one side which opened on hinges.  Once the door was secure, Natalie tapped the box once.  Gregory tapped back twice: the signal for Natalie to detonate the charges.

The charges punched a neat square hole in the roof of the ASB and the box fell straight down.   It landed with a jarring clang, and, for a moment, there was silence as insulation and dust fluttered down to the floor of the building.  Then, as expected, Gregory heard a sound like the hissing of hundreds of agitated snakes, the a horrible wail, then silence.  After a few more seconds, Gregory stepped out of the box and stood in the midst of a few dozen stone medusa, all turned to rock by seeing their own reflections on the box.

“I’ve neutralized the medusa guard,” he whispered into his watch.  In response, Natalie dropped stealthily through the hole in the roof onto the top of the box, then onto the floor.  As the pair turned in the direction of their ultimate destination, they were surprised to see a river of flowing lava, roughly twenty feet across.  They clearly recognized the door on the other side from their preparatory study of building schematics, but the river had obviously been added since the maps had been made, probably to keep the medusa happy.

“What now?” Gregory asked helpfully.  Natalie smiled and swung her pack off her shoulders.  “I told Pennepacker we weren’t going to need this,” she said as she produced a compressed air powered adhesive cable gun from her pack, “but Pennepacker insisted.”  “We need to give her a medal, or something,” said Gregory, with wide-eyed astonishment.

The pair crossed the lava river hand over hand on their newly fashioned suspended cable.  They paused before entering the door on the opposite side for Gregory to remove a pristine white envelope from his vest. He opened it carefully and drew out a single sheet of fancy stationary.  It read “from the desk of the University President.”   Natalie looked at the stationary and whispered, with something approaching reverence “many freshmen sacrificed so much to obtain that stationary for us.”  “Let’s make sure their sacrifice wasn’t in vain” Gregory offered, with obvious resolve.  The both drew a deep breath and flung open the door.

No sooner had they done so than they were nearly knocked off their feet by the hideous roar of Cerberus, the multi-headed student administrative employee.  Each of its five heads sprung out from the central body on a hideous serpentine neck.  Cerberus sat behind a desk that stood in front of a field of low-walled cubicles, where paperwork slaves toiled endlessly, with despair evident on their faces.    “Why have you come to the ASB?” screamed the redhead in the center, clearly the leader among them.  “We’ve come to book a room for Divine Comedy” Natalie said icily.  In a voice dripping with venom the clean-cut male head replied “In order to do so, you will need to fill 37 forms, 19 of which require signatures from deceased persons.  After doing so YOU WILL SPEND A THOUSAND GENERATIONS IN PERGATORY  while your forms are processed.”

With obvious delight, and a little flourish, Gregory slid the fancy stationary across Cerberus’ desk.  The monster gaped in horror as it read a letter from the University President authorizing the bearers to pass unobstructed.  With a silent jerk of its central head, the monster directed the comedians onward.  As they passed through the forlorn rows of paperwork slaves, they distributed free tickets to the Best Of show, spreading light in an otherwise benighted place.

After the desks ended, the cavern narrowed into a poorly lit tunnel.  Fastening on their headlamps, they proceeded into the tunnel.  After traveling about a hundred yards, the tunnel turned 90 degrees to the right, continued on another five yards, then stopped in a rough rock face.  Gregory stood puzzled, asking “is the scheduling office behind the rock face?”  Natalie replied that she wasn’t sure, produced a stethoscope from her bag, and blessed Pennepacker.  Applying the stethoscope to the rock face, she heard muted conversation.  “There are probably 2-3 feet of rock between us and the scheduling office” explained Natalie.  “Well, we’ll have to blast!” cheered Gregory with obvious delight.  They both removed bricks of plastic explosive from their packs and set a detonator  between them.  Having set the fuse for 30 seconds, they hurried around the bend in the tunnel and covered their ears.  The explosion made their heads spin and ears ring.

After regaining their senses, the two proceeded through the blast hole into what looked like a normal office.  The administrative professionals didn’t seem to be phased in the least by the fact that two black-clad individuals had just blasted their way into the office. As Gregory and Natalie stepped across the threshold, they jumped forward, ever so slightly.  They had been warned in advance, that for whatever reasons, the normal laws of physics and time didn’t apply in the ASB.  The most immediate manifestation was the lack of gravity in the scheduling office.  Riding the force of their jump, the comedians coasted easily to the receptionist’s desk, who greeted them as if everything was absolutely normal.

“We’re here to schedule a room!” said Natalie triumphantly.  “Absolutely,” responded the receptionist with surprising enthusiasm, “simply write your names, the room you would like, and the date you would like it for, on this form.”  She laid a simple form, and a normal Bic pen, down on the counter.  The receptionist smiled a pleasant, yet sinister smile, knowing full well that a normal Bic pen wouldn’t write in a zero-g environment.  Natalie brushed aside the pen provided, and produced the highly-specialize space pen out of a pocket in her vest.  She casually completed the form, and handed it to the shocked secretary.  “Well,” scoffed the secretary, “you may have booked your room this time, but next semester, we’ll be ready.”

“We don’t doubt it,” said Gregory as the two comedians pushed off the receptionist’s desk and retraced their steps to the top of the ASB.  Fortunately, Matt was on time with the helicopter.  He had Miley Cyrus playing on the stereo.

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Well, now you have a better sense of what we have to do to put on our shows.  See you in October!