Life > March 27, 2008

By Ryan Coons | Staff columnist

Crime has become a serious problem on campus. Reading the police notes in this very newspaper is testament to the staggering amount of thefts that take place in the dorms and their surrounding parking lots.

However one specific type of theft has gone undetected by what is normally very thorough coverage by the paper.

Recently there has been some sort of burglar specifically targeting campus laundry rooms looking for one article in particular: women’s shorts.

As a community we are baffled as to why this criminal mastermind would go to such great lengths to get his hands on so many shorts.

What does he need them for? Some top secret government experiment? Is he a costume designer for High School Musical 3: Fifth Year Seniors? Regardless of his intentions everyone on campus is feeling the effects of his dastardly scheme.

Women across campus have been put in the awkward and embarrassing position of having to wear spandex and tights without the added coverage of their athletic shorts. But what are they expected to do?

Those that still own shorts live in fear of becoming targets themselves so are forced to subject themselves to the disconcerting reality of looking foolish in public when they too go out wearing only tights.

I demand to know what the administration and University Police have been doing to snare this terrorist.

I use that term with complete seriousness because he is disrupting our way of life. How are the women of our campus meant to be taken seriously when they have nothing covering their bums aside from a tight layer of spandex and an oversized T-shirt?

And how are we, the respectable gentlemen of the university, meant to prepare for the homestretch of finals and papers when our cohorts make it impossible for us to concentrate?

There isn’t much left to the imagination (whether this is for better or for worse is a decision I’ll leave up to the readers).

So loyal readers, take back our campus and help re-clothe our women!

UPDATE: After submitting this article I was informed that the mass of women on campus wearing nothing but tights and long T-shirts was not due to the efforts of a masked bandit, but it is in fact some sort of fashion trend.

So people are dressing like this on their own accord? Did the university, in an effort to roll back costs, remove mirrors from all the dorms? That’s really the only rationale I could imagine driving girls to dress this way.

Are we seriously telling clothing companies that we will perpetuate their notion that consumerism is so strong in this country that we will literally wear anything they put out?

Can we not think critically about something as simple as what we put on before leaving our room every day?

I feel like if we did most people would come to the conclusion, “Hey, maybe I should wear jeans today.”

And it’s not about decency, or the obvious fact that some people obviously should not be wearing such form-fitting garments (although these would also be good arguments).

It’s that no one seems to realize that they look absolutely ridiculous without pants.

I mean that’s why God invented pants in the first place.