by NICHOLAS CATTANEO Nov. 14, 2019

Last Friday, the CDC broke the news of an outbreak of a new antibiotic resistant “super flu” originating from our very own campus. Their report chronicled that the mutation was only possible as a result of the coupling of Bowdoin’s incredibly close-knit community with Bowdoin students’ stubborn refusal to take even a single sick day.

“Bowdoin College appears to be ground zero for this plague,” said CDC representatives, “The drastic lack of sanitation and speed with which students transmit microbes to each other creates a window of opportunity and growth for germs of all kinds. We don’t really know exactly what is going on up there, but whatever you guys are doing, it is really, really gross and we request that you stop.” 

Despite the United States government requesting that the college be shut down for quarantine, students have persevered. “Sure, I have a hundred-and-two-degree fever and a pink-eye oozing like Niagara Falls, but it’s Friday! I HAVE to go out!” croaked a first-year in an interview with NBC. 

Even with the well-being of the entire human race on the line, many students share the same sentiment in an effort to maintain an exterior appearance of quirkiness. “Look, you don’t know what is going on with those cute little germs!” announced a junior to an indifferent Moulton light room. “We can’t just kill them, they’re alive too! This puss-gushing cyst on my arm is named Bonzo, and you can’t just murder him— what if he has a family?!” 

Faculty, too, have joined in on the movement, arguing that the college’s moral prerogative is to stay open. “Think about it,” said one professor, “If diseases are able to develop so quickly here, then shouldn’t all of the healthy bacteria that help us function do the same? This could be how we find cures for all the things we previously haven’t been able to! Our campus has become a petri dish in service of the common good.” 

The BSG leapt on the opportunity to aid the revolution. In their meeting they proposed several plans increase transmissivity on campus, such as banning sneezing into one’s arm, providing only one shared set of utensils for each dining hall, and implementing a “Lick the College Houses Clean” campaign. Furthermore, student leaders encouraged students to “share Juuls and hook up rampantly in order to further foster the spread and growth of the Common Cold.”

Under immense pressure from the student body, the college administration issued a statement on the matter just days later: “We are so proud of our community in this moment. It’s beautiful to see our community driven by such intellectual fearlessness—the college will do everything in its power to keep our students ill and infirm!”

The powerful moment even moved alumni to act. Alumni working in public health have been fighting hard to prevent the passage of sanitation-related legislation, and several donations of raw experimental disease samples were made by Bowdoin’s top alums in medical research. One incredibly generous alum donated several hundred million dollars to the school in order to send Bowdoin students around the globe to share the Common Cold.

While it is unlikely that the majority of students on campus will survive the winter, the Bowdoin community can rest easy knowing that we are responsible for creating a movement with such strong global impact and dire, dire consequences for the success of our species.