The Billy Bass Proposal: A compromise is reached.

Upon finding themselves with a budget surplus the University of Appalachia Mountain 2 gave their graduate students an entertainment budget. Wanting them to have some form of control over this budget the administration tasked one student with finding a board and holding elections to determine who would be on this board. Nominations were turned in and elections were held, resulting in a board of graduate students tasked with deciding how to spend their entertainment budget. After bickering over food or concert ideas Reginald Peterson proposed an idea, a simple idea. He called this proposal The Billy Bass Proposal.

“Alright, so we have 4000 dollars to spend. What If I told you I knew a guy who could get us 800 Billy Bass musical dancing bass for 4000 dollars?” The board was stunned. “I see you are speechless; I’ll take this as a signal that you want to know more.” Emily was not ready for what was about to occur. “Why on earth would we do this?” Reginald, having prepared for this proposal all morning, knew exactly how to answer this. “Think of your legacy. What are you going to be remembered for after you have left? No one will ever remember your paper on increased current flow in negative thermal gradient bodies of water. They will, however, remember Billy.” Reginald then produced a Billy Bass Singing and Dancing Bass from his bag, turned it on and let Billy do the talking.

Billy the Dancing and Singing Bass lulled the crowd and they hung on every word that magical plastic fish sang. “This is completely ridiculous,” Greg said from the back of the room. “We’ll have more fish at this school than students,” Andy added from behind Reginald. “Ok, I have to admit that would be awesome,” said Jennifer. The others were shocked. “Jen, how could you think that was awesome?” Greg asked. Jennifer thought about her response for a few seconds and said, “Everytime you walk by one of these fish, you’ll have to think, I did that.” Reginald smiled at the mysterious backup from Jennifer. “Wherever we place a bass we will be remembered. Every time someone sees a billy bass, Andy here will be remembered.” Reginald squeezed Andy’s shoulders for effect. Andy didn’t like the squeeze. He thought it was a little too light. However Andy did not express his concerns that Reginald might be a “closet queer” (his words not mine) well enough to the others in the meeting. Meanwhile, Greg thought the squeeze was supereffective; he was thinking of a compromise, and brought it up for the group’s consideration. “Reginald, I like it. However, I think we need to at least have a pizza party for the grad students to appear as though we have done something other than bought 800 talking bass.” In an attempt to quell any compromise Reginald started the Billy Bass up again. Its demands to “take it to the water” were met with unmoving determination for a pizza party. Reginald relented, “Alright, we’ll buy 760 Billy Basses and use the remaining funds to purchase pizzas for everyone next week. If everyone agrees we can have a vote on this.” With a vote of three to two the motion carried. Life at the University of Appalachia Mountain 2 would soon get fishy. To Be Continued…