Thursday, September 20, 2012

A Strongly Worded Letter to the Fisher Roofsit

Dear planners of and participants in the annual Fisher Hall Roofsit,

To start things off, I think it's lovely that you devote so much time and effort to charity with this event. Really, it's commendable.

That said, your stupid roofsit is slowly destroying the souls and ruining the lives of every single person on South Quad. This is my third year trying to live, work, and sleep in Howard Hall - you know, that place where I do in fact live, work, and sleep on a fairly regular basis, as it is my home - during the roofsit, and it is my third year of utter failure.

On some level, I must say I sympathize with your unapologetically irritating control of your PA system. I have been put behind the megaphone or microphone at my fair share of events over the years (even one out on our mutual home, South Quad), and I understand. Holding that megaphone is thrilling. A person normally ranking at a 4 on the proverbial 1-10 annoyingness scale jumps immediately to a 12.5 when charged with hours of yelling into a megaphone. Spotting one's friends across the quad whilst brandishing a megaphone requires you to call them out as blatantly as possible. That is, in fact, the golden rule of megaphone use. Yelling at random strangers can also be fun, especially if said strangers are terrified, unsuspecting freshmen you can lure into support of your cause with your ceaseless shouts and repetitions of, "Hey you! You with the face! And the nose! Come over - yes, you, you in the yellow pants, GET OVER HERE - DON'T YOU WALK AWAY I WILL HUNT YOU DOWN." See? So fun.

You people, however, are out of control. I'll begin with the obvious. This afternoon, as I stood on the quad after class observing your ridiculous antics, I heard the all-too-familiar strains of Taylor Swift's latest effort, "We Are Never, Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever, Ever...Ever Getting Back Together" blasting through your speakers. This is unacceptable. Playing that song is an abuse of your loudspeaker privileges. The next time I hear that drivel, I will walk right over to your "roof," chuck your iPod into the Reckers dumpster, and set your speakers to an endless loop of the Bye Bye Birdie soundtrack until you apologize. (Note: literally any other Taylor Swift song ever released would be perfectly fine. But this one...I refuse to accept the inescapability of its catchiness, and until it goes away, I will be on a dedicated mission to purge it from my life and keep myself from dropping $1.29 on it in a moment of iTunes weakness.)

Next, let's think for a second about the actual nature of this "roofsit." For starters, "roofsit" is, as demonstrated by the little red lines all over the draft of this post, not even a word. Would it have killed you to spell it with a hyphen, thus becoming respectable among spell check programs and less cringe-inducing among childhood spelling bee champions-turned-twentysomething-grammar nazis (a group that includes, most importantly, me)? I think not! But I digress. The most problematic element of your roofsit is that, really, it's not even on a roof. It's on the roof of your doorway. You're closer to the ground than our cheerleaders will be for 90% of this football season. Fishermen, you don't sit on a roof. You sit on a throne of lies. Want to impress me? Do your roofsit from the roof of Flanner.

Then there's the completely ridiculous length of your little roofsit. Of course, as one of the organizers of last year's 24-hour Howard signature event/seesaw marathon, the Totter for Water, I can't really talk when it comes to obnoxiously long events. I sat, stood, tottered, and planked out on the quad, yelling into the megaphone all the while, for many, many hours of my life last year. Currently, a new crop of Howard girls is out there doing the same thing (a scheduling conflict with your roofsit that I won't even bother to address). 24 hours is a long time, so when it comes to perpetrating lengthy events, I am guilty as charged. But the roofsit goes on for - correct me if I'm wrong - 9,327 hours. (Okay, so maybe it's, like, 40. You've said it enough times since kicking things off this afternoon, but, in the interest of eventually sleeping in my room, windows closed in a futile effort to block the noise, in my own dorm, I try to ignore it when you speak. Do forgive me.) And the music and the yelling and the haggling goes on - for 9,327 hours. Living in Howard, you get used to surrounding campus noise. You get used to the Dillon Pep Rally. You get used to the band show wafting in from the steps of neighboring Bond every football Saturday. But the roofsit grates on your ears for a whole weekend, and, no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot get used to it. (How anyone is left in Pangborn after living next to the roofsit for all these years is entirely beyond me.)

So, roofsit, I must say, I am not your biggest fan. I tire of your yelling, and I will never, ever, ever find "We Are Never, Ever, Ever Getting Back Together" acceptable fare for blasting through the whole quad. I think your event would probably be more successful if you sold your own silence in exchange for donations. I would gladly give you $20 if it meant twenty minutes of blissful, megaphone-free roofsit respite. (Well...I would pool my money together with my friends so as to give you $20. I could buy a lot of chocolate with that kind of money.) But the moral of the story, friends, is this: you are horribly annoying. And on Saturday morning, as the fans start pouring in and game day begins, I will beg for the third year in a row that the raucous, partying attitude of the Fisher roofsit never, ever end.

Love,

The Domerberry

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