Bonk & Urban Legends (MDMD(4))

[Erik Pohl]

Already seeing some examples of urban legends in the work of Pynchon (I've
read far enough to encounter the alligators in V.-- I'm sure there are
more), I thought this UL I recently read formed a sort of surreal
connection to M&D...


 Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion
years by Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately
known as "Bonkistry."  He has been around forever, so I wouldn't put it
past him to come up with something like this.  Anyway, one year there
were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on
all of the quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going into
the final they had a solid A.  These two friends were so confident going
into the final that the weekend before finals week (even though the Chem
final was on Monday), they decided to go up to UVirginia and party with
some friends up there.  So they did this and had a great time.  However,
with their hangovers and everything, they overslept all day Sunday and
didn't make it back to Duke until early Monday morning.  Rather than
taking the final then, what they did was to find Professor Bonk after
the final and explain to him why they missed the final. They told him
that they went up to UVa for the weekend, and had planned to come back
in time to study, but that they had a flat tire on the way back and
didn't have a spare and couldn't get help for a long time and so were
late getting back to campus.  Bonk thought this over and then agreed
that they could make up the final on the following day.  The two guys
were elated and relieved.

    So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time
that Bonk had told them.  He placed them in separate rooms and handed
each of them a test booklet and told them to begin. They looked at the
first problem, which was something simple about molarity and solutions
and was worth 5 points.  "Cool" they thought, "this is going to be
easy."  They did that problem and then turned the page. They were
unprepared, however, for what they saw on the next page.  It said:

            (95 points)  Which tire?


I thought the tie-in with forged history too interesting to pass unnoted.
I'm maybe 40 chapters into M&D now and have wanted to ask Cherrycoke "Which
tire?" frequently.  I think Bonk even told M & D to answer the questions
they're asked at the desk carefully.  Prolly too far out, but odd
nevertheless.