The Deserted Bandwagon

Author: MATT KUNZWEILER

Fall break sounds like a great idea until you consider the fact that not all Middlebury students (believe it or not) live in the greater Boston area or somewhere else within driving distance. For those of us who don't live around here, we face the inevitable dilemma of "what is more useless: tagging along to the home of the good-hearted roommate or remaining on campus?"

Bostonians can count themselves lucky - while they were eating home-cooked meals, I was eating cold cuts and Cheerios out of the box, sans milk. While they were carving pumpkins with their family, I was sitting at my thesis carrel unshaven, watching Southpark DVDs and biting my fingernails. And while most were playing Scrabble by the fireplace, back at my suite on campus Jägermeister deprived me of my judgment and convinced me to head butt a friend - but I missed and shattered a framed poster.

This is what happens when we are left alone here with nothing to do - we turn into savages. What else does the administration expect to happen? Do they truly think an awkwardly short break will provide non-Northeastern students with an opportunity to catch up on sleep, participate in wholesome activities, relax and study? I believe they know exactly what this campus is like when deserted in the middle of October - we are hit with its eternal dreariness and eventually, loose all orientation and turn weird.

You'll see someone from California walking alone from Atwater to Proctor (the only open dining hall), crying to himself as he wonders where all his friends have gone and what he's done to deserve this. You'll see someone from Iowa talking to squirrels out of sheer desperate loneliness.

We could on the other hand, spend the extended weekend at a friend's house nearby, but that often entails four days of forced conversation with someone else's parents and sleeping in the older sister's childhood bedroom - which usually turns out to be so incredibly pink and frilly that it infringes on your sleep. In the middle of the night, the family dog will probably jump onto the bed and urinate all over the pink sheets...

Even though I explain to everyone that it was the dog who baptized the bed, the family invariably loves the dog more than me and decides that I was not only the culprit, but had the gall to pin it on the family dog, Ralphy, who is just truly precious - yet resembles a jittery inbred rat. We can guess what the family's dinner conversation would be like during the next break - "Remember Matt, the depraved bed-wetter?" But one night Ralphy will leave a gift on their bed, and the truth will set me free.

In reality, so many of us nonNortheastern students stay on campus for break, as it is the lesser of two evils. And sure, some of us will crash yellow bikes into trees, and yes, some will eat special cookies and play with the lab equipment in BiHall. But if anyone wets my bed, it's me, and we can blame it on the Jäger.