It’s that time of year again when the dude who is rumored to be Kris Kristofferson’s long-lost brother sends out an email entitled “Whitman Lifestyle Choices Survey.” When one imagines the Whitman lifestyle, a few images come to mind: eating Walla Walla sweet onions on designated Wednesday evenings, playing frisbee with oversized ham slices on Ankeny and burying dead townie bodies in the wheat fields after a cultish ritual. Just kidding about that last one, gang. The body would be plowed up in a heartbeat next harvest and would probably take a zombie-like revenge on the farmer.
The survey, however, has more intentions than just finding out about our hobbies and naughty habits. It helps inform the Whitman faculty that despite being mostly upper-class, white and from the West Coast we don’t ALL have a cocaine problem (56 percent of Whitties do five lines or less on a typical Friday or Saturday night). It also helps assure parents that Whitman students don’t party too much. Instead, the administration argues, they’re doing interesting things like watching re-runs of Becker, getting stoned and trying to make moccasins, or playing saxophone drunk in the Whitman Jazz Band (they show these pictures in the backgrounds of the stats they showcase all around campus).
The survey is supposedly anonymous, but why did Budweiser start emailing my Whitman account immediately after I checked the box saying I drink 15 beers every night (Don’t worry parents, it’s O’Douls)? Also the question “On how many times did you drink alcohol during the fall semester?” begs the following actual question: “How many nights can you not remember from fall semester?” If, at the very minimum, you had one drink per week, you would be on the far side of that question according to the survey!
On a somewhat serious note, the serious administration is trying to confront a serious problem on Whitman’s serious campus: serious constipation (#toomuchtaq?). One question reads, “I engage four or more times per month in the following behaviors to control my appearance or deal with feelings about my body pooping,” and the options consisted of “laxatives,” “organic laxatives” and “more taq.” Thank goodness. It’s always been a rumor that Bon Appétit put laxatives in the food, but if students were doing organics on top of those, that could be a serious problem. Finally someone is confronting this campus’s overuse of toilet paper! Divest!
There also is an option to check to say how often one takes testosterone/steroids illegally. I personally put down the maximum option to balance out for all the TKEs who are too busy looking in the mirror or spying on Kappa Section on their way to the Crack House.
On an actual serious note to the administration: The people on this campus who have fun are having too much to take a survey that everyone knows is bullshit and used as propaganda anyway.+