Two Years After Becoming Coed and Freshmen-Only, Walton Oasis of Culture
Walton Hall was ablaze with merriment Sunday night as its residents congregated in the first-floor shared kitchen space for the annual fall gala. Looking around the room full of sharply dressed participants, chocolate fountains, and sculpted ice-swans, many students reported being astounded at just how much the university’s efforts to reform the dormitory’s culture had paid off.
“Yes, I’ll be the first to admit that Walton had something of an unsavory reputation,” said visibly blushing freshman Terry Wilkins, “but we’ve really cleaned up our act. It wasn’t too long ago that we were known for being real rabble rousers; nowadays, we spend most of our time as a group putting on dorm cotillion classes, volunteering with middle schoolers in Bryan, and attending various charity functions.”
However, not all students think the dorm has changed. Dalton Fraley, a junior economics major, believes many problematic rituals remain. “They’re just the same as when I was a freshman, but everything has a pretentious new coat of paint,” Fraley said. “They still get mad whenever people walk on their hill, but now someone will confront you by taking off one of the white gloves they’re always wearing, slapping you with it, and challenging you to something called a ‘gentleman’s honor dispute’ using what appear to be authentic 1771 Wogdon and Barton dueling pistols. It’s nuts.”
Several sources report seeing residents attaching finely calligraphed “Walton Loads” pins to each other’s sports coats and vaping with juice they claimed was from the Chianti region of Italy. “It’s drivel, really,” resident Frances Thompson said. “Those who accuse us of incivility are behaving just as Jonah did when he was incredulous at the reformation of the Ninevites. We were just reading that in the Walton all-dorm Bible study this week.”
After the gala, the group left to do “belly flutes,” which is the act of sipping champagne from the navel of the opposite sex—in moderation, they were careful to add.
—Baptism by Dryer
You can find Baptism by Dryer fervently shouting “Come my children, experience the Lord’s warmth!” as he rotates through every laundry room in The Commons. He has spent the last four years proselytizing to unwilling freshmen while they fold their laundry with headphones in. Most don’t register a word he says, but some have heard his gospel and emerged from the laundry room changed (though his followers do keep disappearing after he officiates their conversion). We keep him around, but only because none of our members have disappeared…yet.