DUMMO RAYS

There must be a source of dummo rays ("Pigs In Spaaaaace") somewhere around here. Back before I arrived in Ohio/Oberlin I thought of myself as a moderately intelligent higher mammal. I could figure out all kinds of stuff - even in the utter chaos that is New Yawk City. But out here...

My brain seems to have just gone on a sitdown strike. There's just so much I can't figure out to save my life!

1. Why so many Oberlin students walk around in the rain, getting utterly soaked and endangering their health - when a decent umbrella costs half as much as a single music CD... Is this some sort of arcane Obie custom nobody told me about?

2. Why Ohio seems to be the only state in the nation in which the numbers on the speed limit signs apparently indicate the minimum legal speed...

3. Why students who are supposed to be among our nation's "best and brightest" sit in class like passive lumps. Is there a secret demerit system for class participation no one told me about?

4. Why the Ohio populace is so paranoid about the weather that they start promising school closing news on TV in August. They don't do this "We flush the next three shows down the toilet to bring you breaking news on the Storm Watch" shit in places that really get serious weather! There are parts of this country that consider it a "dusting" until the snow reaches their knees, and the media there don't have this pit-bulls-on-speed attitude toward incoming storms.

5. Why the Co-Op Bookstore is the only business in town that doesn't have to show a profit to stay open, just break even - and yet you can buy nearly everything they sell cheaper somewhere else.

6. Why the College cuts down on heating to save money - at the same time they leave enough lights on at night all over campus to illuminate the Empire State Building.

7. Why prospective students are attracted to Oberlin for its vaunted diversity - and then immediately break up into mutually exclusive cliques once they get here.

8. Why the Security Department says there's no need for assigned parking spaces, because "there are more than enough spaces for everyone," when they know that promise goes right into the crapper on Nov. 1 when overnight parking on the street becomes a ticketable offense.

9. Why dropping a Kleenex on the sidewalk is considered littering, but dropping a cigarette butt isn't.

10. Why there are so many people in this area that are talking about having a special Medic Alert medallion made that says "Take me anywhere BUT Allen Memorial Hospital!"

11. Why Student Health gets closer and closer to Erie County every couple of years. If you want to discourage walk-ins, why not just change the rules?

12. Why every shower head on campus is located less than six feet from the floor. Does the College get some sort of kickback from local chiropractors?

13. Why such a huge percentage of Oberlin students have never set foot inside Philips Gym. Does the phrase mens sana in corpore sano mean nothing to you?

14. Why there are equal numbers of washers and dryers in each laundry room on campus. You don't need an advanced degree in Time-And-Motion Studies to see that with average drying time approximately twice that of average washing time, monumental backups are inevitable as people remove their wet clothes from the washers to find no place to dry them.

15. Why the campus grounds aren't ankle-deep in ID cards - considering how many students trying to get into the gym, dining halls, etc. claim to have "lost" theirs. Are they falling into the same alien dimension that seems to claim one sock out of every laundry load?

16. Why all the town-gown "mutual accommodation" seems to go in only one direction. What did P.T. Barnum say was born every minute...?

One final note. Friday, Feb. 26 is the final home indoor track meet. I think it would be peachy keen if the seniors on the team could look back on ONE home meet where more spectators cheered for them than for the opposition. Drop by, why dontcha?

-Mary Margaret Towey