COLUMN: It's an epidemic

From Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96 From Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96The real cause of UniversityFrom Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96The real cause of Universitystudents stumbling andFrom Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96The real cause of Universitystudents stumbling andmumbling their way throughFrom Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96The real cause of Universitystudents stumbling andmumbling their way throughthe weekend? Mad cowFrom Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96The real cause of Universitystudents stumbling andmumbling their way throughthe weekend? Mad cowdisease. Really? From Jason Brenner's "My 20 Inches," Fall '96The real cause of Universitystudents stumbling andmumbling their way throughthe weekend? Mad cowdisease. Really? Look out, Woodward and Bernstein. I've cracked a case so huge, so provocative, that it makes Watergate look like a middle school prank. You see, I've finally found the explanation for all those strange symptoms many Penn students have been experiencing. After hours and hours of intense deliberation (something I do when there's nothing good on television), I've finally solved this enigmatic problem: the University of Pennsylvania student body has fallen victim to a devastating attack of "mad cow disease." This disease, known scientifically as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (I'll spell that last word in phonetics for those of you in Wharton), is an illness that has afflicted hundreds of thousands of British cattle, according to recent reports in The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer (go ahead, check them out, I'm not making this up -- it even made the DP's World page last week). Over the past few years, the incidence of mad cow disease has greatly increased in Britain. Last week, upon hearing that the disease can be spread to humans through the consumption of tainted meat, schools in England and Wales stopped serving hamburgers. The United States Department of Agriculture claims that our country has not imported British beef since 1989, but I've heard from a very reliable anonymous source (the Fly-Man who works at Stouffer Dining Commons -- I guess he's no longer anonymous) that Penn has secretly been importing British beef for the past several years in order to make those delicious cheesesteaks and hamburgers. And who can forget that appetizing butt steak? Just the name makes my tastebuds tingle. Think about it. The symptoms of the human variant of mad cow disease include mental deterioration, slurred speech and difficulty walking. That describes about three-quarters of the student body on any given Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. The cattle who have this disease exhibit such distinctive symptoms as staggering and drooling. Go to any campus party or local bar, and you're sure to see Penn students demonstrating these very same behaviors. (For the past three years, I was under the foolish impression that these symptoms were alcohol-induced. How could I have been so wrong?) According to other sources in high places, these characteristics tend to be very prevalent during celebratory times on campus, such as Spring Fling and Princeton's loss to Mississippi State in the NCAA tournament. That makes perfect sense. Spring Fling is a well-known weekend in which students participate in mass consumption (although I didn't realize it was of dining hall hamburgers). For the past several years I've been noticing that a lot of my friends have been performing at less than stellar levels in their classes. I first thought that going out five nights a week and sleeping through 90 percent of their lectures and recitations contributed to their poor scholastic performance. But now I realize that their academic ineptitude was caused by this disease that eats holes in brain tissue -- contracted, of course, when all of us actually used our meal plans freshman year. But why would the fine folks in Dining Services want to poison the friendly and polite student body? You see, tuition here at Penn ($17,974 plus various and sundry fees per year) and dining hall prices ($2,624 for three meals per day for a year) are way too low. Every idiot knows that. You've got to cut costs somewhere to pass such savings on to the student body. For all these years, I've thought that Dining Services food was simply nutritious and delicious. After all, the food is never greasy and is always something of an epicurean delight. Never have I had a meal at the Class of 1920 Commons without considering it almost a sensual experience for the palate. I knew that having such a high quality meal at such a low price was simply too good to be true. Despite this tragic outbreak of mad cow disease that seems to have infected virtually every Penn student, there is a positive aspect to this whole situation. Finally, students will understand the real reason they've been failing their Economics and Calculus exams. Finally, students will recognize the root cause of sleeping through their 9 a.m. recitations. In contrast to the previous theories I had developed about students' weekend staggering, drooling and general mental deterioration, these behaviors apparently did not occur because students stayed out until 4 a.m. getting drunk the preceding night. In reality, consumption of alcoholic beverages had nothing to do with their failing three out of four classes; the real problem could have been the lunch they had eaten the previous day. As the saying goes, "The proof is in the pot roast."