No Balrogs allowed at Commencement (unless their names are on the list)

My students' fingers dance across the laptop keys as they scramble to write their final essays in under three hours, a challenging task for them but for me too since it appears that few of us got much sleep last night. One student is popping chocolate-covered espresso beans and I'm tempted to beg for a handful except that I'm sure they would make my skull explode, so instead I'll sit here and try to look alert. 

It's not easy, thanks to the nightmare that disturbed my sleep very early this morning, and let me just pause for a moment to reflect upon the deteriorating quality of nightmares. Where are all the invading insects, threatening monsters, and endless falls from treacherous cliffs? These days all it takes to disturb my sleep is an irrational comment at a committee meeting.

Yes: the most terrifying moment in the current nightmare occurred when some sort of college administrator from another campus stood and screamed in my face, "Why aren't there any Mexicans in this graduating class?" Which is absurd in so many ways:

• If anyone needs to scream at me over how I'm handling my duties as Interim Faculty Marshal, then it ought to be an administrator from my own campus and not a representative of our chief athletic rival.
• I have no awareness of whether there are any Mexicans in this year's graduating class and neither do I have any control over the composition of the graduating class, so why is he screaming at me? He should borrow a time machine, travel back four years, and scream at the admissions staff.
• There's no need to scream at a committee meeting. Can't we just all get along?

Despite its absurdity, this nightmare suggests that I'm suffering a twinge of anxiety over the whole faculty marshaling thing--and I'm not even the real Marshal! She's on sabbatical and I'm next in seniority, so I'm filling in--just this once! It's a relatively easy gig most of the time, but Commencement is a pretty big deal and the Faculty Marshal has a tremendous amount of power. For instance, I get to tell the President where to sit. (The President of the college, of course. Not the other President.) 

And if that's not enough excitement for you, I am the last hurdle between the graduating senior and glory: I stand at the bottom of the ramp leading to the platform where diplomas are awarded (except that they're just diploma cases--the actual sheepskin comes later). By the time they get to me, the seniors will have been cleared by the Records office and placed on the official Commencement list, led to their seats by my assistant Marshals, and cleared one final time by the Marshal closest to me in seniority, who will carefully check the list to make sure students approach the platform in the correct order. 

I stand at the bottom of the ramp like Gandalf blocking the Balrog's way, and I wield immense power in deciding whether to let each student pass up the ramp, but a good Marshal does not abuse her power. Instead, I will employ very strict criteria, to wit: how many students are already standing on the ramp? We wouldn't want it to collapse in the middle of Commencement, would we?

Come to think of it, the Balrog would make a great nightmare beast, far more frightening than a screaming administrator. The Balrog is not concerned about the racial or ethnic composition of the class moving toward the platform, and neither, when you get right down to it, am I. When I stand at the end of that ramp allowing students to ascend to glory one by one, my only concern is to keep the procession moving and guard against utter and complete collapse.

No wonder I'm having nightmares. If the Balrog shows up, I'm tossing him a handful of chocolate-covered espresso beans.