COLUMN: "Take a Walk on the Wild Side"

From Brandon Fogel and Jason Seiden's "Skippy Gone Batty," Spring '92 Skippy's Note: What a long, strange trip it's been! I'm healthy and somehow in one piece again. By the way, Nepal skiing is way underrated. Unfortunately, Bat lost his plane ticket home from Spring Break in Mexico, and was forced to walk. Last we checked, he's in Kentucky. · For literally thousands of people every day, Locust Walk serves as a main thoroughfare. After much observation, however, it is my opinion that we should try to find some alternative routes to and from wherever it is we go. The reason I say this is simply that walking down the Walk has become too darn dangerous. The way I see things, the worst part of the Walk's traffic is the pedestrians. Everyone says that the bikers are to blame for the perils of the Walk but, like those who think Bush would do a spiffy job fixing the economy, they're wrong! Cyclists have just become scapegoats for people who are a tad too insecure to say, "Hey, my bad!" [Translation: "Hey, my fault!"] That's right. Pedestrians come and go as they please, ignore just about the entire planet around them and generally disrupt what might otherwise be a quite pleasant pathway for others to use. Sheez. These stains are mo' frustrating, too -- you've all been there -- you get to class all flustered because the guy in front of you not only moved as rapidly as the friendly food folks at Stouffer, but kept meandering back and forth so you couldn't get around him. And sloths like that are just the tip of the iceberg: a good walker is so hard to find these days, as the following list of freaks demonstrates. If you know anyone who fits any of the following descriptions, please, have them seek counseling. · People who ram you into things while they talk to you by getting closer and closer... · People who stop without warning to talk with anyone who says hello to them. · Tall people who look up. · People who walk with their eyes closed. · People in any sort of a hurry. · Short people with umbrellas · People who dance-walk to Michael Jackson on their Walkmans. · People who mosh-walk to Nirvana on their Walkmans. · People whose music isn't played on a Walkman. · People who can't walk a straight line. · Big people who walk very straight lines right at you. · Annoying people you don't want to acknowledge knowing in public who seem to seek you out. · Bad rollerbladers. · Bad skateboarders. · Any biker whom you have seen fall. · People who disregard an extended hand and obvious greeting -- oh, the ignominy! Funny you should ask, because after countless hours of observing these morons-at-work, I have come up with several possibilities for why left-right-left is so hard here: · Gravity is stronger in West Philly than anywhere else in the world · Going from sidewalks to slate to brick is too difficult for us doorstep Ivy-Leaguers. · That winding "blue" pattern down Locust Walk confuses us. · Our shoes all suck. · Penn's bricklayers all suck. · Little underground gremlins run around pushing up bricks. Personally, I'm hesitant to accept any of these theories (except maybe the gravity one) and quite frankly, I don't really want to know which is right. I enjoy watching people who can mathematically prove my existence fall on their faces on their way to lunch. It's funny. And if we study tripping at Penn and find out why it happens, then we'll probably learn something terrible and won't be able to laugh at it anymore without getting hammered by some fleeb activist somewhere. And that would be bad and boring like many other aspects of life here. (Don't argue. Many aspects of life here are boring.) So laugh, dammit, because you look stupid when you do that little stutter-step after slamming your toe into the ground. And you all do it. You know you do. Everyone trips at Penn. You'd think maybe this disability would go away by the time you're an upperclassman? Well, forget about it. Why do you think all those people are out on Locust Walk collecting money? It's not for charity. It's for knee surgeries and crutches for their bedridden friends at home. I'm surprised the Tutoring Center doesn't offer tutors for walking, or that some Whartonite hasn't capitalized on "How to" pamphlets: "For beginners, lift left foot up, bring forward, extend leg, repeat with right leg; and for advanced walkers only, left . . . left . . . left, right, left." So that's it. Don't scream about the cyclists and Physical Plant truckettes until you learn how to walk. And for those of you who don't walk down Locust Walk ever, oh well, whatever . . . never mind. Jason "Skippy" Seiden is a freshman Entrepreneurial Management major from Highland Park, Illinois. Brandon "Wombat" Fogel is a freshman Physics major from Potomac, Maryland. "Skippy Gone Batty" appears alternate Fridays.