Let the rain fall down.

All rise for the honorable Chairman.

Sit down! Are you crazy?! Don't you know there are hurricanes coming? Jesus, (pronounced hey-ZEUS) don't you people know anything about safety?

Actually, come to think of it, a hurricane could be a good thing. Now, now, before you bite my head off for being insensitive (yeah, I'm looking at you, girl in the red shirt with the large jaw), consider all of the ways in which a little hurricane every now and then could really put some things at Duke into perspective.

First, it would put the drought even further from everyone's mind. Ahh yes, the drought. Remember those days of "Stage 4" or "Stage 5" or "Code Blue" or "Red 41, red 41, set, hike" during the drought last year? Remember the administration assuring us that everything would be fine as long as we installed hand sanitizers in each bathroom and everyone took Evian showers (like every good Duke student should anyway)? The fish were jumpin' and the cotton was high.... yeah, those were the days..

Sorry, I got lost for a second there. My point is, since Raleigh sold all its water to Aquafinac or Aquafrescar or AquafuquaT or something, it seems like this area is always in a drought. Thus, despite the tremendous pain-in-the-tush it would be for Dukies to walk on those glorified puddle-catchers that line the quad during torrential rains, the hurricane would bring major benefits to all the beautiful flora and fauna of Durham. What flora and fauna, you ask? I think there are some fine specimens of both on the Cosmic staircase. You should totes check 'em out.

In addition to helping with our perpetual shortage of H2O, the hurricane would give Duke students some serious perspective on the concept of "the outdoors." The way I see it, a lot of people here don't like to go outside. They give alllll sorts of excuses for why they can't go play in the sunshine on a beautiful day.

"I have class," "I'm not dressed up enough," "Edens is too far," "I'm in Pratt," "I have a hernia," "What are you doing in my room?" Etc. If you ask me, these people need to lighten up (for the record, I was in your room because I thought I had left a pair of pants in there. Sorry for the misunderstanding).

But with a hurricane on the horizon, instead of reusing these tired excuses, students would surely focus on really important conversation, such as,

Cause it could hurricane ANY MINUTE NOW.

. Touché.

See? How touching. Two friends just making some time to enjoy the nice Carolina weather. Couldn't have written it better myself.

The moral of the story is, why not have a hurricane come through? Now, let me make very clear that I do not wish any devastation of any kind upon people or property, as that is no laughing matter. However, with Tropical Storm Hanna and Hurricane Ike and whatever other alphabetically relevant weather patterns on the way, it seems that what we're talking about is more along the lines of some wind and rain. Big freakin' deal. I saw more damage at the Golden Corral on John Goodman's birthday. A LOT more.

If this hurricane gets out of control, please burn all copies of this column. Please disregard any of these words if anyone is injured during or after or while swimming naked in a pool of Busch at Tailgate. If no serious damage occurs, though, please heed my fresh and insightful opinion on what I hope becomes a natural non-disaster. And for goodness' sake, go out and play on the quad.

Before it's too late.

Meeting adjourned.

THE CHAIRMAN is holed up in the new Perkins Link in order to "weather the storm." With plenty of HDTVs.