District residents unaccustomed to snow spent last week exploring, sledding, flinging snowballs at each other and drinking. Supermarkets ran out of produce, water, orange juice, milk and booze. Call it a survival instinct, when it snows, people drink. During the first of the eventual two storms, some ventured out into the wilds of the city, walking un-harassed down D.C.’s avenues of power. Flash-snowball fights erupted at the National Mall and Dupont Circle. The only stores definitely open during Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse were liquor stores.
During round two, gusts of wind nearing 50 mph kept most indoors. The only people brave/stupid enough to venture out were reporters from this newspaper and a new competitor checking out the canopy collapse. Neither snow, nor rain, nor collapsing infrastructure will keep The Eagle from putting its junior reporters in danger.
Disconnected from their usual avenues of pleasure, college students resorted to extraordinary measures to stay entertained. After nearly a week spent all but locked indoors, illicit liquids ran dry, cable went out (except for ATV!) and every “Apples to Apples” card was used up. So, students did the only thing they could think of — they stripped down to their underwear, threw on some extra long T-shirts and walked around like normal. According to people of all sexual persuasions, “sNOw Pants Day” was a huge success for all good-looking people.
After the initial thrill of approximately 13 feet of snow (just enough to collapse nearly every roof on campus), cabin fever set in hard at AU. According to Resident Assistant Kristen “Wallie” Walling — this writer’s ex-RA and the greatest RA ever — students were going crazy as early as Monday night. In an e-mail, she said that frustrated students took out their ennui on the snack machines.
“I was working the package room in Anderson for two hours and saw lots of people come down to the vending machines to buy snacks,” she wrote. “Nearly every person that came down started shaking the machines and screaming!! I have no idea why, since they had all JUST been restocked.”
Board games — originally sent by hopeful, if a bit naïve, mothers — were actually unwrapped and used for the first time. “Risk,” for SIS majors; “Monopoly,” for Kogod; “Apples to Apples,” for CAS and “Chutes and Ladders,” or “Hungry Hungry Hippos,” for SOC majors all made appearances in dorm lounges throughout the university. Others participated in a week-long “Tweet-athons” in which tech-savvy students attempted to tweet out Metro closings, Fed closings, everything closings, snowfall totals and so on.
When students were brave enough to venture outside, many partook in all the typical snowstorm events. Snowball fights, “tackle your friends into snow banks,” and “spot the next collapsing university structure,” were all favorites last week. Also a favorite — “avoid collapsing university structures originally designed to protect students from the elements.”
It’s back to real life today (unless the snow-hiccup forecasted turns into another monster) and most students — those without Valentines that is — are ready to go back. Good luck to all as you try to get back to speed for the looming midterms.
-CHARLIE SZOLD
