“Lesson Plans”

After Saturday night’s hour-and-a-half blackout, I figured it was a good thing we did not meet for the Fed Challenge project. On Sunday night, Jeffrey and Marisela came to my cleaned house, with Matt at home, tired from work. About four minutes before Jeff and Mari came, Karissa called on the phone to ask if Mari was there yet (which was the only basis that she would come to my house and take the harrowing journey from Torrance to Carson.) I told her that she wasn’t there yet and immediately heard Jeff yelling from the driveway. Telling her that I would call her back after I opened the garage for him, she complied and agreed to wait for my call.

So I go down to the garage to let Jeff in, with Mari following behind. We settle down in my office for a couple minutes, offering my guests drinks and chairs to sit on. I decide to call Karissa and tell her that both of them had indeed arrived.

A foreign voice I had never heard before picks up.

“Hello, may I ask who’s calling?”

“Yes. This is Christine. May I please speak to Karissa?”

It was her mom…her mom in an estrogen-powered rage.

“YOU GUYS NEED TO GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER! I WON’T LET HER COME TO YOUR MEETING BECAUSE YOU ALL DON’T GET ANYTHING DONE! SHE’S BEEN WORKING HARD AND YOU PEOPLE DON’T…”

My ears couldn’t take the high-pitched mouse chirps, so I hold the handset up toward Marisela, who was about two-feet away. She heard the yelling and gave me a perplexed look, and I come up with an idea.

I hung up the handset and turned on the one-way speakerphone.

She continued to rant and rave until she finally ran out of breath and ended with, “OK, YOU CAN TALK TO HER NOW.”

Karissa attempts to apologize profusely as I, totally distraught with my jaw on the floor, can only answer with a delayed “right” or “ok,” as she continued to ‘explain’ what was going on at the moment.

I knew what was going on at the moment. Her mom had some sort of inflated story that made her appear like the victim. Of course, from many stories and by reputation, I knew that trying to refute any of those lies to Karissa’s mom would be to no avail.

We realized with ‘great sorrow’ how irresponsible we really were, meeting at my house until midnight and discussing what she should have been doing. And I often wonder if our apparent laziness was going to catch up to us on the day of our presentation.

She had just made the greatest mistake that anybody could do to me, which was to question my work, because I knew that my group and I were working hard. I decided at that moment, that she had to hear what I was going to say.

Oh! And this for Karissa’s mom who reads Karissa’s e-mail all the time!

I hope that you’re enjoying this story, because I’m as sure as hell enjoying this too.

I wonder how much of Karissa’s storytelling you really believe, because if you believe it all, you are the most gullible person I have ever had the opportunity to listen to. I appreciate your ranting and for you testing the maximum capacity of the high-pitched frequencies that my phone will allow.

On a serious note, you need to talk to the person who has been offering her house, her food, all her technical equipment, and her time to getting this project underway and guiding it to its finish, because that would be me.

My name is Christine Malazarte. And I do not appreciate being yelled at by a parent who not only does not know me, but defaces my work ethic and the work ethic of my fellow teammates and friends through uncontrolled verbal outbursts. I will happily discuss this manner with you any time you wish, even through Karissa’s e-mail, because I know you’re going to read and enjoy it.

So, if you have any questions or any other complaints, you may direct them to me, and of course, you know my number, because you’re probably going to get it off of Karissa somehow.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration for my feelings and the feelings of my teammates.

Anyway, that _____ had to pay!

So I decided with my friends that we were going to take revenge in the form of a video that will be presented after our presentation. My dad and I take both of them home and while we’re coming from Long Beach, I vent my frustration, hiding the fact that I was going to do this as a form of revenge.

I got up at 6:00 in the morning, prepared all my cameras and both my computers, and was at SAC 3 by 7:45. Marisela met me there, and we set up two camcorders, one at the foot of SAC 4 and the other by the steps of the emergency exit. My plan was to film her looking for us to meet and her wandering the CAMS campus without finding us and include it in the credits during our end time. We were going to ditch her and meet in the locked 3127 for the rest of the day.

The good news was that I got about fifteen seconds of her walking across the field, running back to 3127 to drop off the other camcorder without her seeing me. The bad news was that she caught Marisela with the other camcorder when I returned to try to get her out of there before we got caught.

Karissa asked what we were filming, and I had to make up a big lie on the fly, telling her Mari and I had been there since 4:30 in the morning, filming a short piece called “CAMS at sunrise.” I divert her to SAC 2101, where we still are to this hour, using the excuse of visiting a professor in the SBS building, a professor by the name of Diana Garbonleau, which was a play-off of the maiden name of my great, great, great-grandmother, as an excuse to watch for Jeff to come from his public transportation journey. As of now, this is working, and as soon as she leaves, the ‘real’ work can begin.

When you mention ‘Karissa,’ you can’t help but to mention ‘_____’ as well. When you mention ‘Karissa’s mom,’ you can’t help but to mention ‘super duper _____.’ She has been involved in every single one of her projects and through the reports of sources and friends, just telling her mom that a group project is imminent is the cause of havoc, panic, and fear…only on her part.

She will do anything and everything to make sure that only Karissa looks like the hardworking one. Like a vulture, she stoops over the entire group and prods her dirty beak into our business.

If she really wants to do the project, then by all means, we’ll give it to her! Just get your own computer, ‘cause you’re not touching my PCs with your spying fingertips.

I can’t wait until this thing is over. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees our tribute to her mom. Maybe I’ll send her a copy. Maybe I’m digging myself into a hole…but I’m having fun doing it. So…

Thank you, Karissa’s mom. Thank you.