SQUEAKKKKK.
That’s the sound of the Knight Rider coming to rest at the light on Seventh and Peach streets outside of The Gannon Knight office for approximately the 35th time in the past hour.
The more times I hear it screeching to a halt out there, the more I begin to wonder whether the driver has singled me out to torment with empty promises of future rescue from inclement weather. The near-mythic, infamous presence of the Knight Rider is something that I’ve failed to really pin down during my 3 1/2 years here at Gannon University.
My experience has taught me that the Knight Rider is something that is only seen at a distance, usually through sheets of hail or flurries of grimy urban snow. Especially when you’re running late to class and suffered a sprained ankle the night before when you tripped as you ran in vain to catch up to the very same vehicle of student transportation.
It’s one of the only entities I’ve ever encountered that has mastered the art of being everywhere and yet nowhere at the same time.
Make it 36.
Or, the only other possible scenario in which you might spy the ever-elusive Knight Rider at a closer distance would be after already arriving at your desired destination, panting, sweating and looking otherwise frazzled as the whole two students that were privileged enough to swindle a ride give you that mixed look of pity and disgust your now windblown appearance deserves.
And yet tonight, as I sit in my usual seat near the door of the Knight office, its continual loop around the block seems like an attempt to prove that it’s trying harder to be what the students need.
But I’m not about to fall for its crafty ways. Not yet.
Maybe I’m just bitter. My past experiences with the Knight Rider, the two times I have ever ridden it in my life, have been two of the most horrifically tantalizing experiences of my life. That’s only a slight exaggeration.
(Number 37.)
The first was on one of those rainy days that, instead of making you want to venture outside, just makes you want to stay in Palumbo the rest of the day, despite the fact that you spend enough time there that it actually might warrant packing a sleeping bag.
So it was one of those days. But the Knight Rider was sitting outside Palumbo, its doors open and a light seeming to emanate from within like a beacon. I ran toward it like I was in a slow-motion movie scene, but when I told the driver where my off-campus house is, he just looked at me.
“We don’t go that far. I can drop you off at the rec.”
My joy at what I thought was a fateful encounter was replaced by the horror of squelching through the intramural field to my house in moccasins that may or may not have had a hole in the toe.
So tonight, as the Knight Rider circles back around for approximately the 38th time, I just don’t know if I’m buying the act. This could all just be a part of the pretense of being constantly in motion and constantly circling campus with the goal of rescuing huddled, frozen students limping feebly along A.J.’s Way under the inexorable weight of textbooks and laptops.
Forgive me, Mr. Knight Rider Driver, but I can’t help feeling a little skeptical.
