By Joseph Stalin
Last Rue American Family Man
In the most recent “State of the College” meeting held by College president R. Barbara Gitenstein, it was made fairly clear that, in reaction to governor Chris Christie’s budget cuts to higher education, tuition will increase in the fall. Although some students at the College have decided to just take this increase in stride, accepting the fact that they will be in debt for most of their adult lives, others have turned to more direct ways of coping with this newest frustration.
After discussing the matter with several students, the most popular choice for tuition-based stress management is overwhelming -- hard drugs and alcohol, and lots of it. Despite countless hours of assemblies and the DARE program, which insist that drugs and alcohol are not the answer to any problems, it turns out that all of these efforts were for naught. Drugs and alcohol, in fact, are the answer for many students, including senior music history major Johnny Hammersticks, who was hammering away like he was friggin’ Tommy Noble.
“I was concerned about the tuition increases until my friends turned me onto dropping acid,” Hammersticks said, as he dropped acid. “Now I just ride in a hot air balloon with Alf and Tucker from ‘Are you afraid of the dark?’ remember that show?”
Hammersticks paused, removing a flask from his camouflage jacket, consumed the contents, and continued the interview, not regarding tuition increases, but regarding why frontal male nudity did not play a larger role in “Are you afraid of the dark?”
Other students have become creative in dealing with tuition increases, concocting extremely potent drinking games to take away the financial pain. Instead of beer pong, students in Phelps and Hausdoerffer Halls play “crushed aspirin, Sudafed, Nyquil and Xanax mixed with Mountain Dew” pong. Instead of the traditional rules of “quarters,” Townshouses East residents have a modified version that entails simply taking shots of vodka until the participants can no longer spell the word, “quarters.”
Consequently, transports on each morning, afternoon and night of the week at the College have increased exponentially and Lions EMS can barely keep up.
“Sometimes we literally have to bring the drunk and high people we find with us to go help other drunk and high people,” senior Lions EMS crew chief Charlie Hammersticks (no relation to Johnny Hammersticks) said. “There just are not enough hours in the day.”
Hammersticks went on to describe an instance of two drunken females sharing a gurney in an overcrowded ambulance and making out on the way to the Mercer Medical.
“It was awesome,” he added.
In an effort to combat the number of students entering nearby Trenton for hard drugs and cheap liquor, and subsequently not returning, the C-Store has worked with Gitenstein to lower the drinking age on campus from 21 to 17, as well as legalizing all forms of illegal anti-depressants, narcotics, barbiturates and hallucinogens.
Commenting on the situation at hand, Gitenstein said, “At this point, everything is so screwed up, if it feels good, I say do it.”
The C-Store will begin selling a variety of drugs and alcohol at discounted prices later this week, available via cash or Get-it points.
“We understand that times are tough, so we figured, the kids are buying the stuff off the street anyway, might as well make some money out of it,” John Higgins, general manager of Sodexho, said.
Higgins anticipates Keystone Light and Natural Ice to be big hits around campus.
Although most students are toking up and hitting the bottle hard these days, some are staying optimistic. Just earlier today, a male student stood atop Travers Hall, obviously looking to the sky and his endless possibilities for a future in these financial times. He stepped off the edge before we had a chance to speak with him.
