The seemingly non-stop snow storms that have plagued the lucky few people on campus have recently been discovered to be the work of the Stevens Aerospace Engineering Department, whose Weather-o-Matic 3000 has been on the fritz lately. “We’re trying our best to get everything under control,” said the department’s spokesperson, wearing their customary COVID-proof astronaut suit. “We have an ice cream social every Friday, and someone accidentally dropped their rocky road into the weather machine. Just be glad it wasn’t Water Wednesday, or we’d all be swimming right now.” The department has been working hard to fix the machine and get Hoboken back to its federally-mandated weather patterns. “The clean-up is taking more time than we thought: the marshmallows are really stuck in there, and we have to fix it before Peanut Butter Thursday or else we’ll never get it clean.” The spokesperson then waddled off the stage, propelled slightly from the compressed air shooting out of their suit.
The administration has apologized for the inordinate amount of snow recently, though they have noted that it hasn’t been a walk in the park for them, either: Attila the Duck is very sensitive to the cold, and his big ol’ beak is practically frozen solid. “We’re very concerned about Mr. The Duck’s health,” said Attila’s private ornithologist. “If he walks face-first into a wall—which he is very fond of doing—I’m afraid that his beak might shatter into a million pieces!” While this prospect may excite puzzle enthusiasts, it would be very detrimental to Attila’s current robust health and Herculean physique. Not only would this mean the suffering of everyone’s favorite and beloved duck-themed school mascot, but Attila is also the school’s only method of clearing away snow. “He can do things with a shovel you’ve never seen before,” said one groundskeeper wistfully. “I turned my back for one second, and not only had he completely cleared the 8th Street Lot of snow, but he had used the snow to make himself a full medieval castle complete with a functioning drawbridge and an enormous nest that he could perch in.” If Attila’s beak goes the way of the dodo (a sensitive topic for him: his first love was a dodo, please don’t bring it up around him), then the school would be neck-deep in snow with no way to clear it, a sad sight to the thousands of people making their weekly pilgrimage to the bastion of COVID testing that is Walker Gymnasium.
While this level of snow would normally be cause for celebration among students as it would result in snow days, their dreams of having the day off have been shattered due to the school’s switch to online classes. “I know that I live in Arizona, and I was going to have class online anyway, but can’t they just do us a solid this time?” said one student pushing for the school to re-implement snow days. But the school isn’t budging: “If we’ve learned one thing from the pandemic, it’s that we are no longer allowed to have fun,” said a Stevens spokesperson. “In fact, I believe a ban on fun has recently been established on the federal level, so in addition to snow days, we’re taking away sledding and snowball fighting, and if you so much as come to campus with a top hat and a carrot, you’re going away for at least 15 years.”
Off The Press hopes this whole weather business clears up soon, as all of this snow has really put a damper on our production. When we see the large amount of snow outside our office, we think that our prayers have finally been answered and the whole world has been turned into blank newspaper, causing all of us to come rushing outside, pens at the ready, to start writing the Ultimate News on the Ultimate Paper. When we realize it’s just snow, we have a collective breakdown from the mental anguish of living in this sinful world, with its trees and rocks and other non-writable surfaces. Due to our below-average memories, this whole affair can happen multiple times a day, causing us not only deep despair but also a significant reduction in productivity.
Off The Press is a satirical Opinion column written and organized by Off Center, often used to joke about current Stevens issues and campus news.
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