sandbox

After their proven efficacy in consoling children in emergency rooms, recess proposes enlisting clowns in combating campus midterm fatigue.

In fact, more clowns = less stress = less time spent drinking away the stress = less tailgating = more quiet nights spent composing poetry on the quad and baking cupcakes with that girl down the hall who won't stop talking about metaphorically "putting the icing on the cake." This would please the administration and the students. Here's where recess thinks the clowns should be situated:

1. The Chapel Walkway

This tends to be a very high-stress area. Kids are normally locked in bundles of worry over the test they just failed, or the essay they need to write that night, or whether or not Lee Melchionni's knee will be OK for that night's game. Just think how much better the walkway would be if a clown occasionally popped out of the darkness of an alcove and greeted students with a faceful of bubbles, or, even better, a balloon puppy.

2. The East Campus Bus Stop

If there's one thing we have learned about freshmen, it's that they are younger than the other students. This, of course, makes them much closer to the age of children, and much more vulnerable to the charm of a strategically placed clown. The main East Campus bus stop is a fine place for such a clown, with its comfortable "clown-friendly" open space and its hordes of freshmen. This would also reduce the stress of "fliering" to the older students. Overall, it's about as good a location for one of the new clowns as exists.

3. Bostock Library

Already as state-of-the-art as libraries come, Bostock would quickly lapse into a stupor without the addition of at least one or two clowns! There's nothing quite like doing a little Bio 44 homework while a clown is blowing a kazoo in your ear, or finishing off that last bit of Chaucer while a clown is measuring your head for a balloon replica papal hat.