Interactions with God #17

Toward the end of 1984, much had changed. I was still on academic probation, but in the process of returning to school for the spring semester starting in January of 1985. I managed to get a roommate for my apartment, and a part-time job at a local grocery store, so money was not as tight. During the time off, I also found out that I could petition the University to obtain residency status, which would lower my tuition cost considerably. It was a long shot, but I figured I would give it a try.

I filled out all the necessary paperwork, but really did not qualify. Basically, to be eligible, I would have had to live in the state of Texas for a year while not being a student. Since I was only out a semester, my chances were not really good. I did manage to get a meeting with a UT admissions representative to pitch my case. As always, I took the ferrets with me in my duffle bag.

As I said earlier, the ferrets were rather busy and generally very curious. I could put them in the bag easily enough, and they might sleep for a while, but when they wanted out, well, they wanted out. They never, and I mean never, would easily go back into a zipped duffle bag once they had slept for a while. Except this one time…

Timing is everything, and with God, timing is perfect. Here I was, in the UT admissions office, a student, who had done so poorly his first year at UT that I ended up on academic probation, now asking for in-state residency. I made my pitch. It consisted of a really heart felt desire to clean up my act, and live in Texas. Texas was my home. Though my family lived out of state, in Massachusetts at the time, I was planning to stay in Texas. I even wanted to stay in Austin. All of that was true, but I could tell on the woman’s face that, though she sympathized, she could not bend the rules.

I watched her as she was beginning to tell me that she could not approve it. She even started out by saying that the rules would not let me qualify… that is when the ferrets decided they wanted to come out. They had been perfectly silent up until that exact moment. My bag started to move and make a scratching noise. The UT admissions woman stopped talking just before she was going to say no. She looked at my bag and asked what I had in the bag. I unzipped it and out came J’Belle and J’Fall, being extraordinarily cute. Also, at the exact moment I pulled them both out of the bag, two other women walked by the little office. You can guess the rest, there was roughly 10 minutes of ooohing and aahhing as the two normally ornery ferrets did more kitten like things than they ever had before. They never even wanted to be put down to explore… that was really, really, odd. Then after the ten minutes of extreme cuteness, they did the most unusual thing ever. They went back into the bag without any trouble, and went to sleep!

I tell you that it was completely out of character for them, completely. I don’t think they ever did anything like it again. It was perfect. I could not have planned it better had I thought that 10 minutes of cuteness would benefit my cause. It did. Once the ferrets were back in the bag, zipped up, and even quiet, the UT woman said… “Ok, I will grant you in-state residency.”

I went home praising God, who just did the impossible right in front of my eyes, using two little animals and perfect timing, that again showed His absolute control over everything.

So the cost of my returning to UT in the next semester was now a third of the cost it would have been. I did not finish that next semester, as God had another plan in mind. However, I can say that the decision to leave UT would not have gone as well, had the price for the tuition not been so much less… but that is another interaction with God yet to come.