Parker was freaked out by scary stories. A few particularly terrifying ones in this book included:
"The Day of the Pop Quiz."
"You Read the Wrong Chapter - Now You Fail Grad School."
"The Faculty Member Doesn't Think You're Funny."
"Rumplestilstudent: The Grad Assistant Who was Forced to Spin Data Into Gold!"
"The Group Project From Hell."
Parker thought, "These are so scary!" And also, "Where did this book even come from?!"
Rory tried to trick Frankie by asking if their term paper - which wasn't due for six weeks - was finished. Frankie was working on the third draft, but felt confident it would be done by the deadline. When Frankie said that, Rory got scared and decided a few things...
Rory decided not to tease people about their homework again.
Rory also decided to go ahead and get started on that term paper.
Rory also decided that it was wise - whenever possible - to work on group projects with Frankie.
Sometimes when home alone Dog thought about research. Dog had amazing research skills. Dog was brilliant with both APA and MLA as well as Chicago. Dog could type about 228 words per minute. Dog was great at data analysis, literature reviews, copyediting, drafting outlines, etc.
"Too bad," thought dog, "That you keep yelling at me to get away from the computer. I could be a lot of help. Oh well..."
Then dog chuckled and chewed the cord off a cell phone charger.
Rory was ready to graduate. Rory had a cap and gown and a mock up (self created) of the diploma and a new briefcase.
Unfortunately, Rory wouldn't graduate for another year and a half.
It was that time of the semester when Parker needed some alone time. Sitting in a favorite chair and watching the sun go down as the room got darker and darker, Parker thought about accomplishments and all that remained to be done this semester.
Parker liked days like this, but just wasn't sure why they always seemed to happen the day before a major paper was due.
Also, Parker reflected on how little joy there was in writing major papers.
