Stupid is as stupid does

As the year comes to an end, the stress of final exams, finding summer employment or ending an ill-fated relationship can easily push a student over the edge. Sometimes a night on the town with friends, or 57 straight hours of sleep is all you really need to work through the life’s trials and tribulations.\nOther times, however, students just reach a breaking point. Though most of us on the editorial board relieve stress through a combination of tantric yoga exercises and aromatherapy, other IU students let the pressure build until one day, when their blood alcohol content reaches critical mass, and they just sort of snap.\nTake last Friday’s incident at the Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archeology. According to Indiana Daily Student reports, a Spiderman-inspired student was arrested after the IU Police Department was called to investigate objects being thrown off the balcony of a North Fess Street apartment building. When officers knocked on the apartment door, he attempted to climb out the back window, only to be spotted by a second cop. After a brief altercation with the officer, the student was booked at the Monroe County Jail. \nIn addition, the student and two friends (possibly accomplices) were cited for underage consumption but were returned to their dorms following the incident. \nWhether alcohol was involved in the December 16, 2004 sky diving attempt by David Feldsott’s pet guinea pig, Noel, is still unclear. Sometimes what seems like a good idea at the time, is just inexplicably stupid. The then-freshman and Briscoe-Shoemaker resident fashioned a makeshift parachute out of duct tape, floss and a garbage bag. Though calculating the terminal velocity of a guinea pig is of monumental importance to scientific research, and a vital variable in the construction of an air-powered rodent cannon, animal rights groups were less than amused.\nIUPD managed to free the animal from the tree in which it crash-landed in. Feldsott was served with a $500 animal cruelty ticket after police investigators saw that his was the only window without a screen within the flight range of a parachuting guinea pig.\nIt seems that the moral of this story is not to throw things out of your own window, but encouraging readers to throw garbage out of a stranger’s window isn’t really the point. As much fun as it is to place bets on whose guinea pig will hit the ground first, we want to remind students that warm weather, cold brews and a looming finite math exam are ingredients for disaster. \nThis weekend, students from every school in a five-state area will be descending on Bloomington like inebriated locusts, most of them have been hammered since Tuesday. Suffice it to say, you’re going to hear a lot of really bad ideas this weekend: peeing off bridges, throwing couches out windows, flipping squad cars; the list goes on. Through the alcoholic fog, it will be easy to get on board, but remember, the police haven’t been drinking. They’re not going to understand that the vomiting from the rooftop gives the city color.