There's an invasion in my town

I’ve been in a fit of depression lately. I realize that my town is about to be invaded and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Foreigners from all over the world are coming — mostly from Illinois and the East Coast.

I’ve had a vision: Soon the once calm nights of summer in Bloomington will be tarnished with the laughter and joy of students.

They are slowly trickling into town with their beds strapped to the top of their sedans, going the wrong way down Atwater Avenue or Lincoln Street. It’s as if they’ve never seen a one-way road before.

The government would have you think drunk drivers will kill you, but it’s wrong. Out-of-towner driving is far more dangerous.

If you’ve never been to Bloomington before: Stay the hell off my roads! They were made for me and not you.

I’m a townie, so I live here year-round. I don’t just pack up my crap and ditch town on May 8, leaving behind a mess of shoddy, thrown-away furniture on the sidewalks.

Soon I won’t be able to get a table at the Village Deli whenever I want.

The time is coming when I won’t be able to diagonally cross any street I want, whenever I want.

But what’s worse is that I’ll have to see the innocent smiling faces of freshmen everywhere I go.

They wake up every day like it’s the best damn day of their lives. They walk around with any good reason and act like there’s stuff they have to do.

They have no idea how much the world sucks because they have no reference level. They live in their own little worlds where people serve them breakfast, lunch and dinner. What baffles me is that the food sucks, but they don’t even know it.

They get to piss and poo all over dormitory bathrooms and someone else comes in later to clean it up for them. They have no bills to pay and they function off of fictional meal points and their parents’ credit card. Most drug dealers do not even accept either of those as a form of currency.

I see them laying down over here and over there in the Indiana Memorial Union, taking up the space where I was going to lounge.

When I try and stare them down, they proceed to pout back at me like Bambi, and it melts my heart.

I really can’t stay mad at them. They’re stupid freaking freshmen. They don’t know squat, and they don’t know what it means to be sad.

I’d like to sit each of them down one-by-one and tell them how house parties are nothing like Asher Roth songs.

No — that party last night wasn’t that crazy and no one would have taped it because all you did was throw up on your best Ralph Lauren polo and confess your love to your high school ex.

But I can’t do that. They have to learn this on their own. This is what college is all about — developing oneself.

But please, for the love of all that is holy: Realize your shame early so that we can have constructive conversations about international politics we barely comprehend and praise atheism like other broken, liberal college students.

­— nicjacob@indiana.edu