By Vivian Kalla
On March 7, an anonymous gaggle of Lewis & Clark students decided to spend the night away in Lake Oswego. After the arduous 30-minute ride on the 35, they began their mayhem. Numerous Lake O residents recognized the students as belonging to LC, noting in later eyewitness reports the signature look of a hoodie, baggy cargo pants, grown-out mullet and an audible smoker’s cough.
Local police received multiple calls that the students were laughing past 10 p.m., speaking loudly of unholy things (including ketamine during Acting 1 classes and mutual masturbation) and shirking their academic duties on weeknights. After lackluster responses from college administration, the residents of Lake Oswego had an emergency meeting. The outcome of the pearl-clutching was a new strict curfew of “student tourism” in the city south of Portland.
Local sheriff Michael Hunt gave out the following statement.
“The good people of Lake Oswego have found that the villains at Lewis & Clark college are far too prone to horrible, horrible actions, at odds with our community’s values in public. The use of dope, publicly and proudly acknowledging the breaking of academic integrity, going around our businesses stealing profits by not buying anything and dining and dashing, are all wrong in our eyes and must be punished. Kids these days. LC students, whatever you think you’re going to come here and do, it ain’t happening,” Hunt said.
After the decision by Lake Oswego, numerous other establishments and neighborhoods followed suit. The Fred Meyer and the Safeway on Barbur, the Sellwood-Moreland neighborhood (west of 17th) and every Trader Joe’s in the Portland-Vancouver metro area have made similar provisions. The La Mota nearest to campus has gone the extra step of updating their institutional policies to begin ID’ing customers.
“It’s not about the money, it’s about sending a message,” said the hot guy behind the counter of Nectar in a Heath-Ledger-Joker-voice. “We do our utmost at La Mota to make sure our patrons feel safe. We are implementing a zero-tolerance policy: Anyone under the age of 26 who tries to shop for reduced-price resin carts will be asked to show student ID. If they’re from LC, they will be removed.”
“I voted for it, yeah,” said an anonymous Lake Oswego resident. “The students, they’re insane. They’re agents of chaos. All they bring is salted earth and ruination. To fight fire, we gotta use fire in return.”
LC students have united in the face of this hostility. The Pio Stop Protection Society of Persecuted Students (PSPSPS), was formed to fight against all forms of injustice involving students who regularly take the Pio. PSPSPS had a member give the following statement:
“I think this is worse than ‘1984’,” said Sminston With ’26. “I’ve never actually read that book, but this is exactly like the video essay I watched about it. I know a great number of students who’ve dined and dashed and broken academic integrity and they’re all furious about the allegations. They did nothing to deserve this, and cannot believe they are the subjects of this malicious slander. They read a comment from a Lake Oswego resident about how these students ‘need to face the consequences of their own actions,’ and all got so upset that the PSPSPS meeting had to be postponed for a group-wide smoke break.”
The PSPSPS and other student unions plan on marching on several locations in the coming weeks, demanding bans be lifted and prices of novelty socks with snarky sayings on them be reduced. They are also requesting all who have cars RSVP first in order for them to drive to locations.
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