Better ways to spend $20

Rumor has it that Christian Laettner, our favorite shot-making misanthrope, was once asked to donate to Duke. In response, he supposedly gave money earmarked specifically for the Primate Center because he found its inhabitants easier to deal with and more likable than people. While I’m certainly no fan of people either, I don’t want the lemurs, who are arguably smarter than most of us here, getting access to a slush fund because I fear that they might rise up and take over the campus. Nonetheless, it is that time of year, and the 10 or so of us seniors who have decided to make our bill for college a nice round $140,020.05 (insert joke about this school taking every last nickel) have a choice to make: where do we send this cash? I’ve racked my brain, addled by applications as it is, and offer you a few suggestions for your hard-earned beer money.

Swirly chairs: The chairs that currently come in on-campus housing, as you should be aware by now, have three settings: Upright, Slightly Reclined and Massive Head Trauma. Students might actually want to live on campus if they didn’t fear for their lives every time they tilted back beyond five degrees when sitting at their desks. Give us the swirly chairs of the computer lab and seminar rooms with their glorious 360 degrees of rotation and 12 inches of hydraulic lift! Plus, they’d lead to greater productivity: if I got sick of spinning around in them at home, I wouldn’t have to waste 50 minutes doing it in the classroom. (Fewer funny looks from my professors, too.)

Garden hoses for the main quad: They would enable slip-n-slides, sprinklers to run through and most importantly, allow me to absolutely drench those obnoxious couples who have decided that I absolutely need to watch them slobbering on each other while I’m trying to throw the football around.

Beds for Perkins: Let’s face it: we all know at least one or two kids who pretty much live there. This is just the next step, and it has two major added bonuses. First, it would help alleviate the housing crunch. Second, it would mean a comfortable place for students to fulfill that most elusive of graduation requirements, because right now, I feel one of the biggest problems on campus is that sex in the stacks is just too awkward. Who wants to wake up in the morning with a line of Dewey Decimal numbers imprinted on their butt? We can fix that.

More Pauly Dog franchises: I have many potentially fatal vices: drinking, cigars, American Idol… but I think the one that’s most likely to do me in is my love for those nitrate-laden blood pressure bombs that taste sooooo good. My mother nags me that my frequent trips to Pauly’s stand are going to kill me, to which I reply “at least I’ll die happy.” There are many worse ways to go, like getting mauled by mountain lions or, I dunno, starving and comatose, so I say bring the red onions and spicy mustard to every corner of campus!

Permanent jousting platforms: Sure, they’re out at Oktoberfest and Spingternational, but I feel that there’s no dispute on this campus that can’t be settled by the use of “pugile sticks.” Awkward love triangle? Let ’em joust! Honor code violation? Let ’em joust! Financial aid arbitration? Let ’em joust! It boggles my mind that we can find the money to give the basketball team a brand-new practice facility but we can’t recreate the American Gladiators Arena (from Universal Studios, Fla) here on campus. Make the Eliminator a mandatory phys-ed requirement while we’re at it.

Spork fund: The problem with dining on Duke’s campus isn’t ARAMARK, or the employees or that lovely post-’Dillo rumbling in your stomach. The problem is a noticeable lack of sporks. The spork should be the official symbol of the Duke Kid: versatile and yet slightly tacky. I didn’t price them out, but your $20.05 could make sure a lot of future Dukies are sporking away at the Loop.

Of course, if all else fails, you could always remember which columnist keeps you entertained on Fridays and send him the money instead…. (I think I may have just made Rob a very rich man.)