Thumbs Up
Finals – The day may come when the courage of men fails, an hour of libraries and shattered pencils, when the age of students comes crashing down. But it is not this day. This day we stand … wait, actually, it might be this day. Oh boy, this isn’t looking good. It may have been presumptive to put this in the thumbs-up column.
Folks – What a great word. Addressing large groups of people as “folks” lends you the down-home credibility that lets everyone know you’re one of them and not some fat-cat snooty, aristocrat looking down his nose at everyone.
Cold Apple Pie – Warm apple pie is like your cousin who went to Harvard Med and now makes millions of dollars while saving the lives of orphans, homeless kittens with heart problems, and various celebrities. It gets all the credit. But what about a little credit for the other cousin who gets mediocre grades, bathes every other week, has never earned a single cent, and might eventually become … I don’t know, an accountant or something. What you all don’t realize is that this other cousin (who represents cold apple pie in this painfully overdone metaphor) is eventually going to become the president of France in the year 2054. While he may seem worse on the surface, he’s actually far better-tasting and satisfies hunger more fully.
Thumbs Down
Chips in Bapst – This one still baffles us. At what point did it seem like a good idea to crack open a bag of extra-crispy potato chips in a place nicknamed the silent library? Every minute mouth-sound you make echoes through the majestic hall, nauseating the huddled students attempting to study. It’s a shame, a darned shame, that there’s nowhere left in this world where a man can sit silently in his muumuu and practice his hip stretches.
The Smell of the Trash Room – If you live in a dorm with a communal trash room, you know the pain of entering that room. It’s like getting hit with 1,000 farts, all concentrated inside of a milk-soaked, rotting egg. For those of us with noses specially attuned to stench (they call us the stank-brigade or the reekateers) it can be a painfully unpleasant experience that makes you consider everything that’s wrong with the world.
Faulty Zippers – Standing in the doorway while people walk around you, struggling to zip up your raincoat like some snot-nosed 5-year-old, is an aggravating experience. Whoever designed this crazy double-zipper, flip-flop thing where the one goes in the other and neither really works so great but they zip up and down and then not really, should have stuck to buttons. Now you’re stuck jumping up and down having one of your biweekly tantrums because there is absolutely no way this zipper will ever wo- … never mind, I got it.
The End – The same old mischievous thumb-meister you’ve grown to love will most likely be back next semester, but this final issue still marks the end of an era for some of us. Seniors: you will be missed (and then eventually forgotten like everyone else). Summer awaits. When the thumb speaks again, it will be a new day. But for now, this is it. It’s time to roll on out, folks.
Featured Image by Ciro Fusco / AP Photo
