BY: Emma Kilbride September 25th, 2021

Last week, Bowdoin students gathered at the Office of Sustainability to participate in this year’s FreeCycle, a yearly event flocked to by students seeking to absolve themselves of environmental guilt and to hoard their peers’ garbage. Many students, however, found themselves unimpressed with the offerings at 10 Cleveland Street, which apparently ranged from mildly underwhelming to downright hazardous.

One student reports having been delighted to pick up a seemingly brand-new microwave before transporting it home, opening it, and being greeted by an unwelcome surprise: the fermenting remains of what appeared to be a grab-and-go Lumbo Basswich Wrapini. According to the student, who wishes to remain anonymous, “shit was low key rancid as fuck.”

This rotten bass mishap seems relatively tame compared to the FreeCycle misfortunes of some other students, one of which resulted in a medical emergency. On Tuesday night, sophomore Kyle Higgenbottom was rushed to Maine Medical Center after being anally impaled by the leg of a defective lawn chair he had acquired at the Office of Sustainability just days prior.

Brandon Allen ‘23, a FreeCycler who had hoped to outfit the kitchen in his new apartment, found that his experience was marred by the unlikely presence of a recently cancelled celebrity. “I found this Chrissy Teigen for Target meat cleaver, but then I read on Buzzfeed News that she told someone to take a dirt nap, which is like, super messed up,” Allen recalls. “I’ll probably just use it as a poop knife or something.”

Other reported FreeCycle disappointments include a collection of (used) Sonicare toothbrush heads, a single Wii nunchuk, and an iCarly beach towel with “some sort of funky crust on it”. The Office of Sustainability declined our request for comment.