Of all the Vanderbilt student media groups, only MyCommonsLife’s intrepid reporters dare delve into the true depths of Vanderbilt’s seedy underbelly. Without further ado, here are the top five ways in which mysterious forces are manipulating our campus society toward agendas malevolent and unknown.
1. The Vanderbilt squirrels are trained to eavesdrop on student conversations.
We all know birds aren’t real, but you might be surprised to learn they aren’t the only ubiquitous small animals that can be trained/programmed to spy for the state and other authorities. The Vanderbilt squirrels report directly to Chancellor Diermeier about student dissent, allowing him and the rest of the administration to take immediate and extreme disciplinary action. While past headmasters had to utilize an extensive system of signals and tiny whiteboards to understand the squirrels’ defamatory reports and security recommendations, Diermeier’s training in the dark arts allows him to understand their chittering like a Disney princess, which has significantly streamlined the process.
The more experienced squirrels tend to conduct their surveillance from inside trash cans, because not only is it unobtrusive, but that’s where they’re most likely to overhear students who’ve just finished their meals and are throwing away the cartons complaining about the dining halls. This is why you never hear anyone complain about the food at Vandy–it’s a capital offense, and anyone who makes a disparaging remark about the chicken in particular has been immediately disappeared.
2. Vanderbilt doesn’t offer a business major because it would make the student body too powerful to control.
Business majors are just too great. We already have our hands full with the magnificence of the econ and HOD majors, who, in a very “Harrison Bergeron”-like fashion, outshine the rest of the student body as the life-giving sun outshines the remote and ethereal stars; were Vanderbilt to allow the business-minded among us to achieve their full potential, our society would crumble under the force of their will. A private university is, after all, a type of business. This is also why the temperature in Branscomb is kept as low as possible at all times and the Munchie meal plan options have been drastically limited: The administration is keeping the econ majors weak and malnourished so that they lack the strength to realize their true, innate glory. (No, I don’t see what my business minor has to do with this theory. Journalism ethics are an invention of the lizard shadow government; I owe you nothing.)
3. The Covid-19 Testing Center is gathering DNA for mass cloning operations.
Think about it. Why is Vandy using the saliva test when everyone else seems to prefer the nasal swab? Because the saliva test is easier to perform and more stable in transport than the nasal swab? Don’t make us laugh. The saliva test collects way more DNA than the nasal swab, leaving plenty left over after cloning experiments gone wrong. The STEM departments run the actual cloning process, and they do in fact offer staff positions to students in the biomedical engineering program, so if that’s you and you’re looking for a good summer internship be sure to apply by walking three times around the FEL Center, whispering the password “Mr. C is my ideal life partner” into the nearest shrub, and finally folding your personal statement into a paper airplane and tossing it into traffic on the 440 south.
Our sources inform us the main goal of the operation is to create a clone army to sell to foreign militaries, though the STEM professors seem to be having some trouble marketing an army of scrawny, sleep-deprived college students to the North Korean security forces. All of these sources, of course, either received an email shortly afterward from the Office of Student Accountability and subsequently refused to speak with us beyond unintelligible deranged muttering, or in one case reported to Covid quarantine housing and were never seen again, so it’s difficult to corroborate their claims.
Alternatively, the Covid-19 Testing Center could just be dumping all our samples into the swimming pool-sized Saliva Vat located in the classified section of the tunnels under Branscomb, which is why there’s that weird smell in your dorm sometimes. The purpose of such an activity is unknown.
4. Students who get lost in Stevenson are fed to the demigod Groth’nag’leth.
What lies beneath Stevenson is beyond the descriptive Power of human language, for the Thing beneath Stevenson is a power unto Themself. What lies beneath Stevenson, specifically beneath the Suzies pickup area, is beyond mortal Terror, a surfeit of awe, a surfeit of Being that manifests as Hunger, a surfeit of Hunger that evades satisfaction, for if It were satisfied It would not be Groth’nag’leth. O, Dread Emanation of the engineering department, scourge of the Pre-meds with Your terrible gentleness, patience beyond measure, awful Mirror of the human condition, swoll’n with the despair of a thousand freshman chemistry students, accept these Offerings, led straying into Your merciful Grasp in the interminable tunnels of Medical Research Building III. Be nourished by the Center for Physics and Astronomy’s ample and beauteous bounty; in their last moments you will be as their Sun, and they will appreciate Your Awe. Consume now these Gifts, cunningly redirected to Medical Center North rather than Medical Center North II, doomed never to see the Joe and Howard Werthan Building except in the ecstatic and corrosive Omniscience that pools between Your ever-widening jaws.
Great Groth’nag’leth, Heir to the Unknowable, we offer Thee these youths, and in return all we ask is that You in your infinite Patience delay Your maddening Ascension until our fragile mortal bodies have naturally expired, and our spirits have left behind this plane that Thou art destined to Envelop. Give us leave never to look upon Thy dread Face, and we will show Thee all the reverence owed to Groth’nag’leth Steven’s Son, Fear-Brother, Labyrinthine, the One Which Contains Multitudes.
5. The Randwich is actually the exact same thing as the Commons Magnolia sandwich.
Okay, this one is a little far-fetched, even for us. But we feel obligated to at least inform you of this unlikely theory, which was posited to us in a whisper by an unknown source hiding behind a fake plant in the Office of Student Accountability. This source insisted that, if you compare the Randwich and Magnolia menus on the GET app, you will find them identical, or at least close enough that the difference becomes insignificant. Nor, they claimed, was the method used to prepare this sandwich in Rand in any way superior, or even distinct. Unfortunately, before this source could further substantiate their outlandish claim, our cameraman here at MCL was seized with an irrational rage and began screaming at them to stop saying these awful things, which unfortunately attracted the attention of the Office of Student Accountability. None of us remember what happened next, or in fact the name of our cameraman, whose existence we are only aware of now because he appears briefly in our archives speaking from out of frame. I, personally, first regained consciousness three days later, wandering around the Recreation Center gym covered in strange markings. My colleagues report similar experiences. Such are the hazards of journalism. But anyway, even we have to admit that this claim is preposterous, as the Randwich is clearly and undoubtedly superior to all other sandwiches served on Vanderbilt campus, in absolutely every way.