College Park: The weirdest place on Earth

Enough is enough. I'm mad as hell, guys. And don't act like you don't know why. Some pretty screwed up things have been happening lately, and I can't keep quiet about it anymore. I guess I'll be blunt: Can someone please explain to me why this whole campus has gone loopy?

Seriously, we've gone insane. I mean, think about all that's happened these past few weeks. First, the university decides to close Campus Drive for no good reason.

Then, some dude gets caught pooping all over the floor at McKeldin Library. And finally, just to top it all off, an alumnus stabs his co-worker to death with a samurai sword and then jumps off a cliff to evade the police. And when I say "co-worker," I mean "fellow porn star," because this dude was a porno actor. Are you kidding me?

No wonder university President Dan Mote and Athletic Director Debbie Yow are jumping ship — this place has officially gone bonkers.

Now look, it's not like the city of College Park was ever normal. I sincerely doubt there's any other place on earth that houses a serial rapist named "The Cuddler." I think we've cornered the market on that one. This place has always been Weird Town, USA, and that's fine. Weird is good. Weird gets me through my boring, mundane life.

But now, we've gone a bit too far. We're going somewhere I can't follow. Right off a cliff, in fact.

Can you believe it? The weirdest place on earth just got a whole lot weirder. We're screwed.

Do you know how hard it must be to advertise this place nowadays? The rest of the country probably thinks we're a bunch of raving, homicidal maniacs who spend our days watching porn at the Hoff Theater and our nights crapping wildly in public like a bunch of silverback gorillas. And hey, when we get really excited, we set the city on fire and riot like the French. Our favorite leisure activities include slicing people open with swords and freestyle cliff-diving.

And guess what? The people who think we're crazy are right. They're right, people!

We've officially checked out. The verdict is in, and it turns out we're bananas. We've just bought the farm, and we're probably going to have sex with all the animals.

I'm sorry, but I'm about to have a nervous breakdown because of all this. Some random freakin' yahoo pooped in our library, I can't enter the university because its main road has been shut down, and a former Terp committed murder and then went "waheee!" off a cliff. Sorry if I can't compose myself right now. It's just that great authors can't even make this stuff up. I thought The Shawshank Redemption had a pretty good story, but we may have just topped it.

And golly gee willikers, what perfect timing, too! I mean, with orientation happening right now and the search for a new president continuing daily, there hasn't been a better time for us to completely snap.

I may as well join the club. Who's got a sword?

Mike Sanders is a senior history major. He can be reached at sanders at umdbk dot com.