It’s just a bunch of guys who say “Damn, that’s crazy,” after every sentence
We all know that an Ithaca Winter is a hard time for all students and faculty. Seasonal depression and the bitter below zero cold are enough to make anyone feel more run down than they already do while balancing school, work, community involvement, and—maybe if you’re lucky—a social life.
Students have been seen to do nothing but gaze disgustedly up at the dreary sky above them. Many even begin to erupt in sobs as they walk past the Textor fish statue mounted on the charmingly wobbly tiles and shake their fists at the American flag that has been half-mast since Bernie Sanders lost the primaries in 2016. One day in the dead of winter, first-year student Emma slipped on the Textor tiles so effortlessly built for safety and stability and landed flat on her back. She laid there in agony staring at the misconfigured statue and cried out into the frozen void: “This is not what Ithaca looked like in the brochure!” Her words turned to icy pfffs as they left her lips. There she lay, defeated, feeling as though there was no one else she could talk to who would really listen and give her the honest, thoughtful counseling she desperately needed. She knew from her own experience that the Center for Counseling and Professional Services on the Ithaca College campus, CAPS, was usually overbooked and extremely understaffed, knowledge that made her feel like she had no one else to turn to.
As she lay there, deep in thought, Emma pondered what she really wanted in a counselor. She was sick of the humdrum advice the trained professionals had already given her; the professionals’ response was almost too textbook. And was it too much to ask that she wanted someone who didn’t pry so much?
She recalled talking to her recent hook-up, Chad, a business and finance double major with a minor in art history. He nodded along to her venting, staring at his phone as he scrolled through Reddit, half paying attention, just how she liked it. After she finished explaining her dilemma to him, she suddenly found an answer to all her problems. Moments after she finished venting her frustration, Chad uttered three words that made her know he cared about her and had listened to everything she said. He chimed in, hardly looking up from his phone.
“Damn, that’s crazy.”
Suddenly, Emma felt totally understood, like a weight was lifted off her shoulders, and she needed to act fast. She knew she must do the one thing necessary for any sort of life solution in 2019– she had to make a petition.
Now, ordinary problem-solving mechanisms pale in comparison to the efficacy and successful results that come from an online petition. One that you do not even have to move from that cozy spot on your bed to sign and fight the Man. Petitions are essential to the starter pack of Liberal Arts advocacy tools.
Emma would petition the school to abandon funding for the hiring of new trained professionals to CAPS who would just inevitably spew academic nonsense and hide behind their expertise in the subject. God, they pretended to know everything. She thought they needed to hire more boys like Chad. Skinny, chain-smoking fellows who would be sure to never make eye contact with you and then watch your Instagram story for the rest of your natural born life. See, with more boys uttering a couple “damn-that’s-crazy” every once in awhile, everyone benefits. And the college can even cut costs by recruiting each candidate straight out of the Roy H. Park School of Communications or the Park Hill Center at the Business School.
Any student could access these refined resources, thus illuminating their outlook on college life with a shining glimmer. With each half-hearted look and Reddit scroll, you can already tell these Park boys will be the answers to your hopes and dreams. Here, take these patient interactions, for example:
Patient: “Hey Chad, I got dumped by my boyfriend of three weeks and my self-esteem is really down right now.”
Chad: “Damn, that’s crazy. U got a light?”
———–
Patient: “Hey Ryan, my Circle Apartment got robbed, and they took my service lizard. I’m really bummed because tomorrow is his first birthday.”
Ryan: “Damn, that’s crazy. Is your roommate single?”
————
Patient: “Hey Dave, I’ve been having an existential crisis about my E-Portfolio. How am I ever going to finish it? The ICC is just bureaucratic nonsense the Man created to keep us students locked in this cage of capitalism and systemic oppression.”
Dave: “Damn, that’s crazy. Did you know that my father owns the New York Yankees?”
You see? All these helpful and relatable therapy scenarios show the potential of what you need to help you to become your best self. So what are you waiting for? Join the fight to get rid of boring ineffective trained professionals who pry into your life and replace them with Park boys. Rest assured that these boys have nothing better to do but skip their 2 p.m. class, say “damn, that’s crazy,” and tell you why the film, Pulp Fiction, was the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all-time. The choice is obvious.
Morgan F is a fourth-year politics major who can’t wait to have their problems ignored by some chain-vaping Park boy in a flannel.