Obama Faulted for Old Woman's Plight

            Late Wednesday afternoon, Hillside resident Natalie Jefferson was faced with a moral dilemma. Once a day when she gets out of work, Ms. Jefferson goes for a walk along the local pathway atop Windy Pike. This Pike is a protected park, overlooking the gorgeous Bottleneck Bay. It is a haven for wildlife and those who wish to escape city life for a while. On Wednesday for Ms. Jefferson, it transformed from this walker’s dream into a living nightmare.

            At 4:00 every day, Ms. Jefferson punches out of her job at the post office. She drops her lunch bag off at her home two blocks away and proceeds to the pathway on the Pike – called “the cliffwalk” by locals. She generally makes the two-mile long trek with a bag of birdseed in her purse, resting at the end to feed the birds before beginning the walk back. By this time the path is usually deserted and, as she says, “It’s just you and the birds and the wind and the water. It’s beautiful.”

            On Wednesday, however, Ms. Jefferson’s daily routine was broken by the piercing yell of a man in trouble. Ms. Jefferson had already fed the birds and was walking back, enjoying the feeling of quiet, reassuring solitude when the shouts reached her. She rushed to the edge of the Pike and looked down, where she saw a man balanced precariously on a dangerously narrow rock ledge.

            When the man saw her looking down at him, according to her report, he was “absolutely relieved. He yelled up to me that he had fallen and couldn’t get a good enough hold to pull himself back up. His legs were getting tired and he said he did not know how long he could last.”

            This situation was all too familiar to Ms. Jefferson. The exact same thing had happened to her two years before. After an hour of standing there, helpless on the ledge, she finally managed to find the energy to hoist herself back up to the top of the cliff.

            Ms. Jefferson told reporters that she “saw no reason to help this man” having been able to save herself all those years ago. “If I could do it, so can he. Why should I expend my energy and resources to help this guy who was clearly too lazy to help himself?” Such were her thoughts when she inched back away from the edge, stood up, brushed herself off, and continued on her way. “There I was, just minding my own business, when that man had the gall to ask me for a handout. Honestly. Some people are just so conceited.” She said she hardly had a second thought about it. When our reporters questioned her about this “moral dilemma” she faced, she laughed a bit and said “Oh, please. It was hardly a difficult decision. Anyone would have done the same.”

            Upon telling her neighbors of her encounter, they were utterly shocked.

“I’d be embarrassed, if it were me,” said Mr. Petersen, another Hillside resident. “What kind of a man asks a little old woman for help? It’s disgraceful. People need to get off their backs and start doing things for themselves.” This growing problem of people asking for help can be seen everywhere in America today, with people left and right asking for handouts, bailouts, and even healthcare. As usual, it can be traced back to the White House. President Obama is known to be an advocate for universal healthcare, and many believe this notion may have had some effect on the stranded man.

            Ms. Jefferson in her final comments showed that, if presented with the opportunity, she would not have done anything differently. “Why should I give up my benefits and risk my wellbeing to help this man I don’t even know in a situation he should get through himself? This is America people. Anyone can work their way up if they’re willing enough. Anything is possible with the right mindset. It’s just pure laziness and I for one won’t stand for it.”

            The man has not been seen since, and locals are calling Ms. Jefferson a “champion of the people”, being able to stand firm in what she believes in the face of such hardship. Her neighbors have been noted saying, “I wish some politicians had the courage she had. She didn’t waver for a second. She stuck by her principles to the very end. Talk about admirable.”

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This story may sound familiar to you. It is the sad story of an unhealthy relationship, a relationship each and every one of you has experienced at some point in your life.

My senior year of high school, all I could think about was one thing. It was all anybody asked me about. They all wanted to know who I was going to date next year. They wanted to know what she looked like, where she came from, what she was interested in, etc. I wasn’t really sure who I wanted to date, so I got to work checking out as many girls as I could. My parents brought me to girl after girl, showing me pretty ones with lots of spirit, ugly ones who were good at soccer, and young ones that looked clean but didn’t have the best reputations.

            Then that day came when I saw her for the first time: Brenda Crawford. She was just what I was looking for. She had the looks, she had the personality, she was good at sports. There was something regal about her, something pristine that bespoke a majestic kind of nature; she was filthy rich. It was clear she spent an absurd amount of money on her appearance, and it paid off.

Brenda was just what I needed in my life, and I decided to make her mine. I went back home to sit on my decision for a while, to make sure I’d made the right choice. She haunted my dreams. Anyone I told about her congratulated me, and someone always seemed to know someone else who had dated her. Apparently she really got around. I visited Brenda a few times over the course of the year to get to know her better – I learned about who she was, I learned about her past (she had more than one father…don’t ask), and I learned about the girl that was going to come to define my life for the next four years. 

            Then, the big day came. I’d never felt anything like it, like the excitement I felt for her. Brenda and I were in love. So we did what any young couple who thinks it’s going to last does: we moved in together. She became my days and nights. She was a part of everything about me; she was what I called home, she was the air I breathed. I couldn’t get enough of her. We started hanging out all the time, and I gradually talked to my friends from home less and less, and I stopped seeing my parents altogether.

            It evened out though, because then I got to meet Brenda’s friends; she had thousands of them. Some of them were pretty nice, but a lot of them did that thing where they made eye contact with me, and I would start to say hello, and then they’d look away as if they didn’t recognize me. Also, some of them needed to wear more clothing when they went to the gym. Other than that though, they seemed like great people.

I started eating dinners Brenda cooked, I started signing her name to my emails, I only joined clubs she approved of, and I got so infatuated with this girl that I even started wearing her clothing. The first few months were a blur. All I remember were crazy hookups, late nights, and skipping class. And Brenda was there for it all.

            Then, things started getting tough. All of a sudden, it got to be a lot more work. Mid-October rolled around and things really started kicking in. I found myself staying up late and waking up early, working my ass off to so that I could keep the relationship going.

Sometimes I wondered if I’d made the right decision, if I wouldn’t be happy elsewhere.

            So I started drinking. And I hid it from Brenda. I drank my weight in the finest cheap vodka the world could offer, vodka that I smuggled into our home in backpacks or old water bottles, hid under my bed, and didn’t dare put in my refrigerator.

            Soon, though, Brenda found me out, and boy was she mad. She yelled at me, made me go to a bunch of meetings about drinking, and even threatened to kick me out of the house. Those were dark days. After that, I couldn’t even have a casual beer with friends without looking over my shoulder.

            When I talked to my friends from home, it sounded like they were having a lot more fun than I was. Everything was “the time of their lives” this and “omgosh” that. Sometimes, I thought about what it would be like if I had their girlfriends. Just for a second, I would picture it. I even thought about acting on these fantasies once or twice, if only just for the weekend. Brenda just had too many rules she expected me to follow. It’s like she never wanted me to have any fun.

This went on for another four years. We’d date, break up for weeks or even months at a time and have literally no contact, and then we’d see each other and fall right back in love before falling into the same old routine again. It was madness, but we were young and in love. What did we care what the world thought? Then the sad day came when we parted ways for the final time, both of us tearful that it didn’t work out. Our last night together, I got severely drunk and stayed up all night with her. And then she was gone. The relationship became nothing but a memory.

            I visit Brenda on occasion, just to see how she’s doing from time to time. She still writes to me monthly, asking for money and donations and the like. It’s gotten pretty annoying. One day, things took a turn for the weird. I was sitting at the kitchen table paying bills or using aftershave or some other adult thing when in comes my son; “Dad. I think I’m in love. I’ve been talking to this girl. Her name’s Brenda Crawford.”

A New Beginning

Goooooood Morning Chestnut Hill (Newton? Brighton? I’m still not sure),

As we get settled in to start another thrilling semester full of exciting “just memorize the slides” lectures, crazy “I’m not going to dress up for that” theme parties, and unexpected post-pubescent  “I thought I had escaped back hair” discoveries, I thought it might be nice to sit back on my RA-approved, recycled piece of plastic bed and share a few things with all you BC guys and gals.

So. Senior year. What a rush, amiright? Along with all the thrills of not getting a mod (or of getting a mod and realizing the rooms are small, the AC doesn’t work, and a closed back door is an invitation to freshmen), along with the loss of the thrill that comes with drinking alcohol illegally, and along with our mundane (oh, you still celebrate those?) twenty-second birthdays, comes the quiet satisfaction of having made it this far without screwing up yet. We can now appreciate the subtle peacefulness that surrounds frantically searching for a job (you CSOM’ers) or looking to get a how-have-you-not-had-one-of-those-yet internships (all you English majors out there).

There also comes that calm assertion that yes, we are indeed the BMOC’s (Although this sounds like a gender-specific term, I mean for it to apply to both men and women alike. However, I don’t recommend directly calling a girl a “Big Woman On Campus”). We can spot freshmen from a mile away on Student Activities Day – now renamed “Student Involvement Fair,” for political correctness – we know exactly who’s not allowed into the mod party, and we know just who to beat up when we run out of lunch money.

With senior year comes the ability to navigate the abyss that is SPO. Don't you just love those dinners they keep inviting (cough forcing) us to go to? As the oldest on campus we also have the responsibility to be the “mature” ones in our clubs, the ones who “set a good example” for the underclassmen and who don’t “always make fart jokes” during meetings. We are respected – nay, adored across campus, and this year is to be the cherry on top of our academic career, the icing on our cake, the fries at the bottom of the bag. For there is only one more year to go, only one more round to fight, only one more nail to clip off of the foot of our education.

As the great Western lyricist Onika Tanya Maraj says, “Starships were meant to fly.” Class of 2013, I raise my non-alcoholic beer to you. Go set the world aflame.