Finding the VCard of the tall, brown-haired senior Fred Lazarus could not have come at a better time for Trisha Marshall. She stumbled upon the ID near the mailroom and picked it up, intending to return it, until she noticed the striking resemblance between Lazarus and her high school friend, Ben, who would be visiting that weekend.
“I wasn’t sure how I was gonna get Ben food. My plan was to just wait with Ben outside the Deece until a big group walked in, and he could slip into the staircase and head upstairs then take the other stairs back down while I swiped in, but that’s risky. My older sister got caught doing that when she visited last month. The Deece workers weren’t happy,” said Marshall. “But Ben and this Fred guy look exactly alike. See? They’re both white, they both have brown hair—they’re indistinguishable.”
Lazarus, in the meantime, has had a difficult time recovering his VCard. “I know I had it at the mailroom, but when I went back to check it was gone. It just disappeared. No one turned it in. Someone saw a girl pick one up, but they figured it was hers because she smiled at it and kept it. But like, it’d be nice to have. I need to do laundry,” said Lazarus, whose post in VC Lost and Found has 64 angry faces, 55 crying faces and no comments.
Lazarus considered deactivating the card, but is certain that as soon as he orders a new one, he’ll find the old one. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. It usually turns up within a day or two, and I can give them my 999 at the Deece, so I’m not worried. Still, it’d like to have it back,” said Lazarus.
Upon his arrival on campus, Marshall gave her friend, Ben, Lazarus’ VCard. Their first stop was Express for some convenient and tasty sandwiches. As Ben swiped Lazarus’ VCard, the Express attendant asked, “Hey, you’re Fred Lazarus? Congrats, man, that’s great about your research.”
Ben, unsure what to say, replied, “Yes, my research. Thank you.” Marshall pulled him away from the register before the attendant could ask any more questions, only to be intercepted by President Bradley and a bevy of reporters and Vassar College science faculty.
“And here he is! The brilliant Fred Lazarus,” Bradley said, putting her arm around Ben. “Thank goodness we were able to track him down based on where he swiped his VCard. Fred, how does it feel representing Vassar as the first undergraduate researcher to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics?”
“Uh yeah,” said Ben. Bradley and the crowd of reporters laughed uproariously.
“Always the jokester,” said PB. “Let’s leave him alone, I’m sure he’s off to the lab to do more groundbreaking research. Now, who would like to go to Crafted Kup? I have gift cards for anyone who can tell me who the woman pictured on the stained glass in our library is.”
“That was cool,” Marshall said to her friend, Ben, from out of town. “Let’s go smoke by the lake.”
While the two headed to Sunset Lake, Lazarus desperately tried to get back into Jewett House.
“Can you let me inside? I need to go to my room. I need my computer so I can go finish research in Sanders lab,” said Lazarus to a passing student. The student pointed to his headphones and shrugged.
Stranded without an ID to let himself in anywhere, Lazarus moped around the quad until around 6 p.m. before deciding to go grab food at the Deece. At the door, however, he was turned away: After Lazarus gave the cashier his 999, the computer claimed the card had already been used.
“Sorry, honey, someone already swiped a card with that number,” said the cashier.
Lazarus spent the weekend in the tree with the big canopy by Chicago. “It was hard to get people to quit making out while I was trying to sleep, but it wasn’t that bad,” Lazarus said.
Marshall and her out-of-town friend, Ben, after swiping into the Deece, spent the weekend attending Nobel Prize–winner events and feeling lucky to have stumbled upon Fred Lazarus’ lost VCard. Lazarus plans to deactivate his VCard as soon as he can get into a building with a computer.